The Other Way
by TheOneWhoNeverWas
Summary: A single act, and a single person awakening in a realm of darkness finds a companion in someone he wouldn't expect. Together they had another chance at life. Together they would change a story whose path was previously set in stone. Together they would find...
1. Prologue

**AN: This is my first Fanficton, so I've got no idea how I'm gonna do. Just an interesting idea I had. And yes, it is a self-insert. But hopefully you'll like it.**

 **Fire Emblem nor any of its characters are owned by me. Just my guy and any others I might make up along the way.**

* * *

 _Watching through a strange light, a lone figure standing in the middle of a dark nothingness throws up their hands in exasperation at the image it was watching; the sight of a giant dragon plunging towards the ground._

 _"Gahh, not again!" The figure cried out in outrage._

 _The figure stepped away from the now shrinking light window. And began walking around the dark place._

 _"Time and time again. The same results happen." It muttered to itself, pacing around the dark void, seemingly in deep thought._

 _The person stopped suddenly, a smile growing on their face._

 _"That's it!" The figure exclaimed, a single hand in the air, "If I have the same variables with minimum changes, I'll keep on getting the same results!"_

 _Slowly the figure raised their hand, a light beginning to form a few feet away._

 _"But if you add something completely random, it changes everything!" It fineshed with a nod of it's head. Staring at the light, its hand reached up and began rubbing its owners chin. The light began displaying multiple images at a fast pace, as the figure stood still, staring intently, before grinning._

 _"Something completely random indeed ..."_

* * *

The Other Way – Prologue

* * *

"Oh c'mon not again..." A teenager groaned to himself, staring at a black computer screen. 'Looks like the power's out again.' He thought while beginning to stand up from the chair he was previously seated on.

Walking away from the desk, he turned to the window to start unfolding the blinds. As light began to fill the previously dark room, his squinting as he began to adjust to previously being in the darkness of the room.

'Well, might as go out to the park again to kill time and see if the power will come back on later.' The youth mused to himself. With a small nod, he set about collected his sweater and key to the small room he lived in.

Locking the door behind him before descending down the steps to the lobby. Exiting the building he turned to it and saw the view of the sun barely rising above the roof. The building he occupied was a decent looking building, being two stories tall and quite long. And a good price for a room too, it'd actually be a good place to stay at if the power would stop cutting off.

'Honestly you'd think they'd have fixed something like that already, the cheapskates.' He muttered inwardly with a frown on his face.

Darren Blake was a teenager fresh out of high school, at 18 years old he was currently waiting for the start of the university at the end of the summer break. With a height of 5.5 feet, accompanied with a lean body hidden under his somewhat baggy looking clothes. His hair a jet black colour and clearly long overdue for a haircut, judging by how small strands keep finding his way into his line of sight. His face looking like it was beginning to narrow out as he was growing older. Eyes a brown so dark that it almost looked like black to most people. His expression was that of tiredness, with the telltale signs of dark rings forming under his eyes. At the moment he was wearing a black sweater with a few trims of silver thrown in. Finishing his look with grey baggy jeans and a pair of black runners.

He yawned as he made his way to his destination, then shivered slightly as a particularly cold breeze blew past him. The path to the park is just a ten minute walk, and the morning breeze is always helpful to wake one up he always thought.

While walking he caught the sight of something through the edge of his vision, it looked like a light, but when he turned to it, it wasn't there anymore. Shrugging it off as having stared at the sun for too long earlier, he continued to cross a street.

"Might as well," a voice said directly behind him.

Spinning around to the sudden voice Darren was confused to see that no one was there.

'Hmm?'

Deciding that he might be a little more tired than usual, he began to turn back, only to find out that was impossible.

Eyes widening in shock, the black-haired teen attempted to move again, though to no avail. Hearing a horn in distance, he began to desperately will himself to start moving again, to get out of the vehicles way. From a distance a large truck was approaching dangerously fast. The wind shield in the front was completely opaque. Hearing the now visible truck approaching quickly, he closed his eyes. Desperately hoping this was just a nightmare and he was somehow asleep back at the apartment. Before coming to the conclusion that he was about to die by some freak accident.

'God da-'

 **FWOO—CRASH**

* * *

"-mnit!" A shout was heard through the darkness.

Seeing as he was still alive, Darren took a moment to observe his surroundings. Though all he could see was the seemingly endless dark void he was in. He could somehow see his hands and the rest of his body, but there was no light visible to show how.

'Hold on a sec,' the youth thought. 'Is this place some sort of Hell?' No, that couldn't be right. He hadn't done anything wrong enough to land there! Sure, he'd argue a bit with his younger brother and tease him a bit, but that was it! Nothing serious at all!

While off in his own mind, a giant figure behind him decided to make itself known to the now distressed teen. With a gust of wind made to bring the teen out of his thoughts. The worried teen snapped into focus when he stumbled to regain his footing. Turning around sharply to look at what caused the disturbance, he began in an irritated tone of voice.

"What th-..." He trailed off; eyes slowly drifting upwards to the view what was in front of him. Unknowingly to him, his mouth slowly started to part at the being in front of him.

Floating above him, using three pairs of giant feathered wings, was a being of chaos. Its body was very reminiscent of a giant snake, with how it was curving ever so slowly in a side-to-side pattern while remaining unmoving. The head of the beast had two golden coloured horns sticking out of the side of its head, while they pointed forward; they also curved slightly to the sides at different lengths. Its jaws containing several massive bone-crushing teeth, and a second jaw inside with its own set. But what really stood out were the six glowing red eyes staring at him. Displaying so much power that it seemed like the air began to distort around them.

The sight would have been something to marvel at, if you were looking at it from a distance, most preferably from another world. Or from the safety of your computer, where such beings weren't capable of destroying your world. Yes, it would truly be a sight to behold, if it weren't for one, teeny-tiny, detail.

It was Grima.

Being a player of the Fire Emblem series, of course Darren would know who Grima was. And it very much resembled the evil dragon from the game. That very same dragon, was now staring directly at him.

"Well," a deep voice resonated through the darkness said, "are you going to say anything or are you just going stand there?" Something about the way the voice sounded gave Darren the impression that it was sarcasm. He began to look around, searching for the source of the voice in the world of darkness he found himself in.

It took the teen in question a moment to figure out that it was Grima that had spoken to him.

"G-grima?" He whispered, a slight tremble in his voice.

The dragon takes a moment to respond.

"No, " sarcasm dripped from its voice, "I'm just your average everyday dragon of chaos and mass destruction. **OF COURSE I'M GRIMA!** " The force of the roar was enough to send the unfortunate teen flying backwards, landing in a heap at the end of his impromptu flight.

Slightly stunned by his fall he lay there for a few seconds. 'Well that clears it up,' he concluded. 'Pretty sure this is somehow my hell.' Slightly dazed, he began to stand up. 'Huh? Pretty sure I'd be hurting more than that.' He noted curiously.

"So..." Darren began nervously, now standing up and looking upwards. "What are you doing here? And why am I here?" Though trying to sound confident, there was still that slight tremble in his voice as he stared up at the fell dragon.

Grima was silent, and appeared to be in deep thought; placing one of his upper wings under his jaw. A sight that would have been comical, if it weren't for the seriousness of the situation.

Appearing to have gotten an answer, the dragon gave a slight nod to himself.

"I have no idea."

 ***Thunk***

"Wh-what do you mean, 'I have no idea'!?" Darren shouted angrily from his position on the floor after face faulting into it.

"I was just kidding," Grima

Darren stared upwards at the dragon incredulously, 'God, what the hell is going on?'

"Now," Grima began abruptly, no trace of the humour from earlier was found in his voice. "Let us begin.

"I think you are aware of what I am, correct?" He questioned, tilting his head downwards to show he's waiting for a response.

Darren nodded his head slowly.

"Now tell me, what–exactly–am I?" The dragon asked.

There was a moment of silence, as Darren was frantically digging up all he remembered about Grima; which honestly wasn't that much. There was never any back story mentioned for the antagonist of the game he had played, so he was having trouble coming up with an answer that wouldn't end up with him becoming a snack for the dragon.

"Grima, the evil dragon who wanted to destroy the world," was his final answer. 'Please don't kill me please don't kill me please don't kill me,' he pleaded mentally, eyes shut as he waited for... something.

"..."

Grima didn't respond for about a minute, seemingly in a state of shock. Suddenly he turned away from the teen, and began... sulking?

"Stupid kids..." Grima muttered to himself, but since there was no other sounds in the place the two being occupied, Darren also heard what was being said. "You'd think they'd teach their young about the past. Maybe a few books or something, but _noooo_ , they don't even think of me as important. Well it's not like I expected them to know, but still..." The fell dragon continued, his wings also becoming depressed as they began to droop to the ground.

"Hey! I'm not stupid!" The black haired teen shouted angrily, face reddening as he knew his answer was barely acceptable, even to himself.

"Well then," Grima said suddenly, his voice a completely different tone than he had just a few moments ago, and completely ignoring the words of the human. "How about I tell you the full story of Grima: the big bad fell dragon?" He asked.

"Uh, sure." Darren said, slightly unsure of his answer.

"Alright then." After staring absently at a portion of darkness for a short while, a sudden bright light took over the darkness. Darren had to cover his eyes with his arm due to the sheer brightness of the light.

"I'll show you."

* * *

After it seemed that the light had faded enough for it to remove his arm. He was surprised to be floating above a field. Very high above the field actually.

"Gahh! Whatthehellhappened?!" He shouted while beginning to flail his arms around wildly, and closing his eyes. Waiting for the inevitable fall to his death...again.

 _'Relax,'_ a voice told him, sounding mildly amused. _'It's just something to help explain.'_

Recognizing the voice of Grima, he stopped flailing about, finally noticing that he hasn't fallen from his height in even the slightest. Chuckling a little with a sheepish grin, he turned around to get a better view of his surroundings.

The field below him seemed to go on for miles, reaching until it was cut off by an ocean that continued towards the end of the horizon. The field was mostly populated by wild grasses of varying lengths, all swaying with the breeze from the ocean, but you could see a few patches of multiple-coloured flowers here and there as well. Behind him was the base of a mountainside. Though he began to think otherwise as the top seemed to have small tendrils of smoke coming out of it.

Only a faint 'whoa...' was all that could be heard from the amazed teen, currently transfixed by the scenery all around him. Always living in the city most of one's life, only to be switched with such a view does that to people.

' _Ah yes, this was always a beautiful place to be back then.'_ The fell dragons voice said wistfully.

 _'Now, this took place before the events which led up to me being sealed.'_ Grima began, his tone one of deep thinking. ' _You humans may think of me as ancient, but in comparison to others older than even I, I could still be thought of as a hatchling. Still young and naïve. And how naïve I was...'_ The end only a mutter of deep regret.

'When many of the eldest dragons began to die out, most became desperate. It was such a dangerous time for many of the young ones. Those left fought against the humans that decided they could hunt the remaining ones down.'

The landscape flickered briefly, and in its place was a scene of destruction. Giant skeletal bodies lay across a different field than the previous. The sky was dark, clouded by a mixture of ash and storm clouds. Flames were dotted around everywhere, always on piles of charred matter. It didn't take much to know what they were.

 _'For years, battles were fought,'_ Grima continued, his voice one of sorrow. _'But our numbered continued to dwindle down while the humans continued to charge forth in an endless onslaught. The amount of remaining dragons left afterwards were pathetic.'_ A hint of malice began seeping into the dragons' voice by the end of the sentence.

The scenery changed once again, back to the previous spot they were at. Though different at the same time. It was night this time around. But the sky was once again darkened by clouds and ashes, and the one luscious field was showing signs of decay.

 _'Driven by the instinct to survive, I searched for anything to give power.'_ Grima paused slightly longer before continuing in a soft, bitter voice. _'And how lucky was I to have found one beforehand.'_

A figure made its way onto the scene. One that resembled a smaller version of the dragon you see within the games. This Grima was about half the size of the other, and had a different colour; having grey and black instead of the black and purple. The image of the young Grima quickly flew upwards towards the top of the mountain.

 _'Before this all began I had previously found something buried within the volcano, something sealed. When I asked later, the ancients had told me it was a sealed power and was extremely dangerous, even to them. So I never went near it again, but desperate times called for desperate measures.'_

The younger Grima had apparently made his way to where the seal was, stopping about halfway up the mountain. Reeling back his head, the young dragon released a barrage of lightning towards the area. The seal made itself known, as a symbol of magic flared to life, blocking the lightning strike. The seal didn't last long though, as it soon shattered under the strength of the attack. Giving a short roar of victory the young Grima continued the attack, but this time using a fire blast. The opposing rock was soon blasted away to small cave which began emitting a familiar purple aura.

Before the the dragon could react, something shot out of the cave, and directly onto its head. The dark energy was quickly absorbed into his head. About to give another roar of content the younger Grima reeled his head back once again. But was cut short mid-roar by a sudden aura of darkness surrounding the unsuspecting dragon. Soon an arc of purple energy began running across the aura. The fell-dragon began to fall towards the ground in a roar so full of pain that it sent a small shudders running across the the spectators' spine. Landing in a small plume of smoke that shook the ground.

 _'I didn't even stand a chance, the power was too much for me, I was driven insane almost immediately.'_ Came a voice filled with sorrow.

As Grima was speaking the ground around his younger counterpart began to to pale, any neighbouring plants also began to wilt.

The scene stayed there for a few more seconds before flickering once again. Now back in the darkness where they began, the two figures stared at each other in silence.

"And so that's how I ended up almost destroying the world; I was too scared to die on my own." Grima stated softly. "I've been here since that day, inside the depths of my own mind, my only safe haven." He spread his wings around in conjunction to his words.

"You wondered why you're hear correct?" He asked, staring in the direction of the human.

Darren gave a slow nod, not having spoken since the beginning of the explanation.

"I believe that you're here for us both. Think of this as another try at doing something." The fell-dragon mused. Before snickering quietly and adding, "Either that, or you're hear by complete random chance."

Darren nearly face faulted once again at the remark to his death, before righting himself. "Well how am I supposed to solve all of this?" He retorted, in a slightly irritated voice.

"Easy," replied Grima in a casual manner. "I make a link to you, then I can bring you back to life. You then bring me with you."

The mention of 'bring you back to life' caused alarms to go off everywhere for the teenager. Flashbacks of staggering corpses on a screen came to mind, "So I'll become a 'Risen' then?" He seethed, venom filling his words.

He also noted how Grima seemed to adopt a hurt expression, before speaking in a low voice.

"It seems you know more than I thought. But to answer your question, no, you are not going to become a risen. The link may be how the _other_ one does it, but I won't."

Seeming satisfied with the answer, but still cautious, Darren asked the dragon what the link was.

"The link is a bond between the owner and the receiver, where in exchange for some of my power, you give me ownership and your memories. But because I don't want a brain dead slave, I'll just skip over that part and only gain a limited amount of your memories." He explained in a more up-beat tone than a few moments ago.

"Okay…so if I have your power, I'll be able to do everything you do?" Darren asked curiously.

The fell-dragon looked at him with an expression closely resembling amusement.

"If you were to do that right away, you would probably be ripped to shreds by the amount of uncontrollable power." He reasoned. "So instead, I'll have to place a bunch of hexes and seals to prevent you from a potential power overload, and gradually lessen them over time. Unless you get strong enough to unlock them yourself that is. So, do you wish to go with the link?"

Darren was about to ask a few more questions, before deciding against it, and threw caution into the wind. "Ah what the hell, I'm probably dead back home anyways. And it's certainly better than being stuck here forever too."

A stream of purple light flew towards the teen as soon as he finished the sentence, engulfing him in the purple aura he saw earlier. While a smaller stream of blue light came from him and flew in the direction of Grima. There was a slight burning sensation from where the light first landed, mostly above the heart, and a faint glowing could be seen under the clothes he was wearing.

After a short while the feeling left, but he could still feel something lingering in the depths of his mind. It was as if there was a presence he could barely make out.

"Huh, that felt… weird." He commented, absently rubbing the spot where he could feel something there. Looking upwards he waited for the dragon to continue, only to see to see him staring absently into nothingness.

A few minutes went by and Grima still hasn't responded at all. In the meantime, Darren had decided to sit down and think about everything that happened so far. It was odd how it went from leaving his house due to no electricity, to getting run over -and most likely killed- by a car, then meeting the main antagonist of a game series that he recently picked up. Only to find that said antagonist was actually a scared and desperate being, who had to look for power to survive and was corrupted by that power, and has hidden into the depths of his own mind. And now here he was, making a pact between the dragon in order to come back to life, and to free said dragon…somehow.

He was interrupted from his thoughts when the fell-dragon finally spoke, though in a low voice.

"Interesting…I never knew that's what could happen, if I were to remain locked."

It took a short moment for Darren to figure out that he was talking about the game. He was about to speak when he was unknowingly cut off.

"I'll think about this later," the fell-dragon dismissed the thought. "Now, time to get you into the 'World of Fire Emblem '. I'll talk to you soon Darren, stay safe." He warned.

About to ask another question, the teenager was cut off by his own scream of terror as he found himself falling. A rift of light in the darkness that he fell through was the only sign that he was moving at a fast speed.

On the other side of the rift the teen found himself hurtling towards a sea of sand. Trying to slow his fall or trying to land on anything but his face, it didn't matter even as he began to flail his arms once again.

"Goooodamniiii-"

There was a small plume of sand and dust as face met ground. As the owner of said face promptly got knocked out, head on top of a rock previously buried in the rock.

* * *

 **AN: So I've had this idea stuck in my head for a while, and decided, 'why not?' I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep this going. But I am determined to figure out a way to eventually finish it. If you enjoyed it, please rate and review. I'll accept anything, as long as you enjoyed it, even a little.**

 **Edit 31/08/15: Fixed a few things, added some other stuff, just the regular stuff.**


	2. Chapter 1

**AN: thank you Gunlord for reviewing, you have no idea how long I was grinning to myself when I saw the review. Now, onto the chapter, we'll be going more into how Darren will adapt to living in this new world**.

—

It was early in the morning when something shifted in the sands of the desert. The sun was just beginning to rise, and sand began to heat up quickly.

Darren was wondering why his room was getting extremely hot all of a sudden, openings his eyes but only seeing the light of the sun, he attempted to kick off his blanket. His foot went through the sand and landed on top of the now scorching surface of the desert, only protected from the heat reaching his feet by the shoes he was currently wearing. But that didn't stop multiple grains of sand from finding their way into them.

His eyes snapped open as he felt like his feet had just caught on fire. Yelping, he leapt up, but only succeeded in launching more sand into the air, which he _might've_ accidentally breathed in.

Now, he was close to coughing up his lungs in an attempt to get the offending grains out of his system.

Breathing heavily, Darren dropped to his knees, hands out and resting on the floor in front of him, ignoring the burning sensation in his hands.

He was momentarily confused as he looked all around in attempt to find something familiar.

A chuckle from behind him was all that was needed to remind him who was responsible for his sudden nap in the middle of nowhere.

"Grima…" he growled out, surprising himself at how easily the name came out. Scanning the area, frowning that he wasn't able to find any sign of the fell-dragon he supposed was his partner. It was odd since he could sense him nearby.

' _Down here_.' Came the voice Darren acquainted with his draconian partner. Lowering his gaze, his eyes widened at the unexpected sight. Before he broke into a grin.

"Pftt hahaha!"

* * *

The Other Way – Chapter One

* * *

Grima, an ancient earth dragon, capable of destroying the world, was currently just a bit bigger than the size of his hand. He looked like a stuffed toy made for children!

Grinning, he turned away from the sight. His shoulders were shaking uncontrollably as he tried to hide his laughter.

Noticing this, Grima growled at his partner, intending to intimidate the teen. Unfortunately, all that came out was something akin to a high pitched whirring noise.

Hearing the noise, Darren turned his head to look sidelong at what was causing it. He could see a dangerous aura growing around the fell-dragon, but paid it no mind as his eyes were focused on the tiny being glaring at him. Needless to say, he couldn't take the new look seriously at all, as shown by how quickly he began to howl with laughter at how non-menacing Grima seemed at the moment. Only calming down after a minute or two.

' _I'm glad at how amusing you find find this,'_ he muttered dryly.

Wiping a few tears from his eyes, Darren began to grow curious about his partners' sudden shrink in size.

"What's up with the new look?" He asked in between breaths.

 _'I don't have enough power to maintain my actual form,'_ Grima explained. ' _Most of it is being used to seal your own. When more of your seals are broken I'll be able to go back to my regular body. So for the moment, I'll just use this mobile form.'_

Walking towards a sand dune to get some shade, he asked more questions.

"So how will I be able to break these seals?"

Grima, who was currently flying above his right shoulder, answered.

' _When you become powerful enough they will unlock. I think you would call it, levelling up? Yes, I'm sure you do. You will unlock more of your powers as you '_ level up'.'

Sitting down in the shade of the dune, Darren contemplated the answer. 'So it's kinda like pokemon huh? Train to unlock more moves as time goes on. Neat, I wonder what I'll be able to do by the end of this.' He grinned at the thought, before another asking again.

"How exactly will I be training? Or more importantly, how?" He was slightly nervous, not knowing how to use any of the weapons in this world worried him. He didn't know what his class he'd be able to do, or if he'd be any good at it. The fact that he might be fighting extremely powerful people later on scared him immensely.

Grima allowed himself a small grin of satisfaction, missing the worried look his partner had. In a tone of what could be interpreted as smugness he said. ' _Taking a look into your memories, I found something… interesting._ ' A toothy grin ran across his features as he continued. ' _So, I decided to make you your own class! Think of it as a 'welcome' gift into the Fire Emblem world.'_

Another sound broke Darren out of his thoughts. Snapping his head up, the teenager saw a black window pop into existence.

"Huh?" Not hearing the earlier words spoken to him, he was surprised by the sudden appearance. Standing up, he walked towards the strange object. His hand began reaching for it unconsciously, and before he could react, his entire forearm was inside of it.

"Ow! Why's it hurting me?" He yelled out. His arm felt like something was clamping onto it, and was frantically trying to get it away from the dark window. Slowly it began to widen and cover the rest of his arm in a few more seconds.

' _Don't worry, it's just a way of getting you into your wear._ ' Grima hastily assured him, watching the scene unfold with interested eyes.

After about a minute later the pane of darkness had completely covered the nervous teen. Darren felt shadows race across his body. His clothes getting heavier than they were previously. The most constant feeling he had though, was still that odd pressure on his right arm.

Once the darkness receded from him he immediately looked down at himself to find see what happened.

"Nice." He grinned.

Sensing an oddly familiar power nearby, Robin stopped walking. He wondered briefly if the Grimleal cult and his father had managed to find him after all these years. Dismissing the thought, he shook his head. 'It would be best to keep moving,' the white-haired tactician thought. 'Ylisse should be a safe place to stay at the moment.' Putting on his hood, he quickened his pace in efforts to reach his destination.

"No way…"

' _It's a nice touch, don't you think?_ '

 _"_ Are you _kidding_ me? This looks so awesome! _"_

' _Well I'm glad you like the new look_.'

"Of course, I mean _this,_ right here just makes it all the better!"

Darren was looking at his new clothing with the same enthusiasm a four year old would have when acquiring a new toy. While having quite a few parts of the thief garb, there were still differences between the two. The hood seemed to resemble his original more; being grey in colour and was of the same material. The same could be said for most of the other parts as well.

' _The weapon seems to be a nice touch eh?'_

Looking at his right arm Darren could only agree. Latched onto the top of his forearm by several leather latches, was a metal case. The case had two wide slits at the front where it began to slope downward. In his hand was a small pull mechanism that lead into two small holes on the bottom of the case. Curious to what was in there, he decided to give it a pull. With the sound of sliding metal the weapon revealed itself.

"Oh yeah… definitely."

Reaching out from both of the slits at the front were two blades about half the length of his forearm. Both curved upwards before falling at multiple lengths, ending at a sharp point that angled towards the ground. Smaller blades ran across the top where curves formed and ended. It would probably be best to mention that it looked extremely close to the weapons a certain species of aliens that hunt down another species of aliens.

' _You are now a unique class. I decided to call it the Hunter class, given its' origins I think it fits rather well._ ' The fell-dragon who had been observing from the shade said, his voice one of amusement and pride.

Chuckling to himself in a low voice that could be considered mad, he watched as the blades slid back and forth as he tightened or loosened his grip on the small metal piece leading into the case. After a minute of repeating the actions, Darren addressed the small dragon behind him, a large smile on his face.

"Thanks Grima."

Said dragon looked at the teenager, his expression unchanging. But was glad to be thanked for something after years and years of loneliness.

' _No problem Darren._ ' He said.

They spent a moment together in companionable silence before Grima added. ' _You're going to have to train with that you know? Your current skill with it would be at an E level right now._ '

Nodding quickly, the teenager thought about where he was on the weapon triangle. Sure it was a blade, but it wasn't as long as a sword, but it held more balance as he swung it than an axe probably did. It worried and interested him at the same time to see how it would fare against them.

"So, how am I supposed to begin training without getting killed by anyone?" He asked curiously. While normally you levelled up by battling enemies, he wasn't sure he would last long against any bandits they came across. And since he knew he wasn't exactly strong, he doubted that he'd even be capable enough to injure the weakest of units.

' _Well obviously, you begin with training your body. Then we can find a way to get you into fighting with your new weapon._ ' Grima told him. ' _Maybe Ferox would have someone who'd be able to give you a few pointers._ '

Agreeing with a nod, Darren began to stare up at the sky, trying to see if he could find out the directions of North, South, East, and West. Before he realized that he was in a different world and that there might be a big difference between sun rotations. With a sheepish chuckle, he asked the dragon to lead the way.

' _Alright then, this way_.' And so the tiny dragon began leading the newly classed Hunter in the direction of Ferox.

' _While on the way there you might as well begin your training_.' Grima mused.

"In this heat? No way, I'm surprised nothing's happened to me yet." Darren strongly denied, small beads of sweat had already began rolling down his brow from the heat of the sun. And he was not in the mood for exercising in the middle of the desert with no water or food. 'As if I'd risk killing myself doing something like that.'

' _Hmm?_ ' The dragon hummed, ' _Don't worry, a little exhaustion isn't that bad. Just a bit of running and that's it_.'

"Nuh-uh. Nope. Not gonna–AHH!" He was cut short by his own yelp of pain as a small bolt of energy struck him from behind his head. Said bolt was fired from the mouth of an irritated Grima.

' _Run._ _ **Now**_.' He commanded, his voice low and menacing. Already, there was another small ball of dark energy generating between his jaws.

Nodding quickly, the Hunter began running. Getting shot at by the fell-dragon whenever he began slowing down. The pace was set so that he was in a near constant sprint, which kept on going faster and faster. This kept on going until he could barely make out the scenery that flew past him, though the fact that he was in a desert just made everything look like a giant ocean of yellow and white. It was needless to say that was beginning to get exhausted, but he couldn't help but be surprised at how fast he was moving.

'Damnit Grima!–OW!–I'll get you for this! OW!'

The desert was quiet, unbroken silence as the wind blew across the sands. Or at least, that's how it's supposed to be. If one was to listen hard enough, you can occasionally hear the faint sounds of someone yelping in pain, usually followed by a few curses. Soon a figure could be seen running across the desert at a speed that there was dust trail behind it, and you could only see a slight blur. Trailing just behind it was something smaller, occasionally shooting a small purple ball at the larger figure. Triggering another cry of pain followed by a chain of obscenities. Soon the two left the scene, leaving a very confused merchant in its wake. Scratching the back of his head, the merchant decided that he was more dehydrated than he thought he was.

 **AN: And tadaa! New class for Darren and the beginning of the story. Just in case you didn't figure this out, the time Darren entered in is probably a few days before the beginning events of Fire Emblem Awakening. If you enjoyed this so far please leave a review and watch out for more updates. Sorry for the shorter chapter, will try to write more often.**


	3. Chapter 2

It was an extremely tiring day for a certain black haired boy. Having just crossed an unimaginable distance running through a desert, on reserves of speed and stamina that he had no idea about, didn't help much either. But while one would normally celebrate themselves on such a feat, he wasn't even going to bother.

So here Darren was, slouched over as he continued to walk behind his guide. Extremely close to passing due to lack of food and rest from the marathon he basically ran. Taking another step forward he tripped on a hidden pebble, causing him to fall onto the floor with a groan.

"Wake me up when we're there." He said weakly, before his head fell to the ground. He cursed something about tiny dragons being gods of evil under his breath as his world faded to black.

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter two

* * *

"Are we there yet?"

 _'No.'_

"…

"Are we there now?"

 _'Gods you've been doing this for hours already! I'll tell you when we get there!_ '

"But I haven't slept for hours already with you keeping me awake." Darren whined. The teenager soon after running had discovered that his ability to constantly run at his previous speeds was due to Grima feeding him energy. He began sulking when he was told he wasn't doing the feat on his own. Though Grima had told him that later on he'd be able to maintain that speed on his own, but he was too busy moping around to listen.

Darren had been awake for nearly two days now, travelling the endless desert with nothing to eat. The only thing keeping him from collapsing again was the energy Grima had been giving him, nourishing and revitalizing him constantly until the dragons' own reserves began to run low and needed to rest.

The main reason they had been moving at all times was what happened a few nights ago.

* * *

 _It was_ _night time_ _. Darren was currently sitting down, leaning on another big rock that seemed somewhat familiar to the one he slept on a few hours earlier. Wondering briefly if Grima had accidentally lead them into a circle before shaking his head. The teen closed his eyes, in attempt to fall asleep by his own will._

 _The run he had earlier had been tiring, having to do several other exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, or squats in between running intervals didn't help. In the middle of the desert no less! He still ached from the spots he'd been shot at by his draconic partner. Glaring at the fell-dragon, Darren's' brows furrowed in determination; he would somehow get the little snake back for that._

 _Grima, who had been resting near his partner, shuddered briefly. Suddenly he was getting a bad feeling of future events to come. Tightening the coil he was in, he tried to make himself more comfortable. Lending such a large amount of energy to the boy not only tiring, but was also extremely taxing on his own reserves. 'At least he's making progress.' Grima thought happily._

 _It was silent as they rested; both had tired themselves out earlier-albeit for different reasons. The_

 _The two suddenly found themselves in the middle of an earthquake. Sand began flying as the earth was shaking violently. A small portion of the ground split open, a small red glow from underneath making a short appearance before being covered in falling sand._

 _Grima immediately flew straight up, trying to see the extent of the damage. Meanwhile Darren hastily scrambled up to his feet, barely holding himself upright. As soon as they saw the blue portal open in the air above them, did they know what was happening. Grima felt the power signatures of multiple risen before he saw them. He immediately knew that fighting was completely out of the question, as they would be very difficult opponents to him in his current state. He_ _wasn't_ _going to risk leaving Darren out in the open at their mercy. Turning to his human partner, he quickly flew towards Darren._

 _'We need to get out of here.' He said quickly, shooting a quick glance towards the first of the risen to have travelled through the portal. Already, they began moving, but they haven't seemed to have taken notice of them._

 _"They probably aren't_ that _str–" Darren tried to argue, feeling slightly confident in his own abilities of protecting himself._

 _'They are more than enough to be able to deal with you,' Grima interrupted. 'And since you can't fight and I am unable to properly protect you at the moment, we need to get away_ now _. Now hurry up, before they notice us.' Quickly he turned away from the moving corpses, and began flying away._

 _Starring hard at the zombie equivalents, Darren was actually able to make out several high class enemies amongst them. He quickly imagined what might have happened if they managed to catch him, and shuddered once before banishing the thoughts. Taking another once over, he was thankful that there were no flying units in the group, so he didn't have to worry about having to run away from that. Incredible speed and stamina or not, he was terrified at the thought of having to outrun a wyvern. After a while of staring he soon noticed that one of them had turned around, and was now staring at him. The boy's face paled at how the risen was looking at him; its decaying face completely empty of emotion as two faintly glowing red eyes stared at him._

 _Suppressing a shudder, Darren turned around, and began to walk in the direction his partner had flown in earlier._

 _'So much for a good night's sleep. That… was beyond creepy.' He thought bitterly, hands in his pockets as he stalked off into the night_.

* * *

They had multiple encounters with risen hoards already, but always managed to avoid them thanks to Grima picking up their signatures and changing their course before they encountered them. When asked how he was able to do such a thing, Grima simply answered. ' _While they were made by the other me, they are still using my power. So I can pick up on their signature if they are in large enough groups, or just insanely strong._ '

Looking at Grima, Darren noticed that the small dragon was getting tired too often since they began travelling at their current pace. Often opting to rest on top of his head and sleeping for an hour or so before leading him off again. He could tell they were making good progress to Ferox, and at this rate, they might make it in a day or two from now.

They stopped at a large sand dune, moving into the shade as they prepared to rest. Personally, Darren felt that he could keep moving.

 _'We'll stop here for now. Rest for an hour, then…_ ' Unable to finish the sentence, Grima fluttered to the ground with a soft thud as he landed.

Darren felt sympathy for the fell-dragon, something he never thought he'd do. But, to push oneself to the point of exhaustion multiple times just to ensure someone else's safety was hardly an easy task, but he did it for him anyways. Resoluting to push forward, he picked up the downed figure and place him on his head.

Grima stirred in his sleep, opening an eye he saw that he was on the top of his partners head. Feeling that he should be guiding the boy, he struggled in an attempt to raise himself into the air. He was stopped when a hand pressed down against his body in a soft but firm manner.

"Stay still," said a soft voice from under him. "I don't want you exhausting yourself for me all the time. So just rest there until we get there 'kay?"

Feeling himself drift into slumber once again, the dragon closed his eye and mumbled once before sleep took him. ' _Thanks…Darren…stay safe…_ ' He warned.

Smiling upwards at his heads' occupant, Darren felt Grimas' breathing slow down, a tell-tale sign that he was now asleep. Feeling satisfied with his decision, he continued walking forward watching as the sun began to set. Feeling the first signs of doubt form in the back of his mind, he quickly stomped the negative thoughts out.

'Don't worry, I'll be juuust fine.' He assured himself, 'nothing's happened so far right?'

Inwardly, he chuckled nervously, of course nothing would. Taking another step forward, he saw how quickly it was getting dark. Unconsciously, he quickened his pace. Sliding his blades in and out of their case out of nervousness, the teen began to anxiously scan their surroundings. Darren was surprised at how vulnerable he felt without the presence of the fell-dragon that would protect him if he was in danger. It was odd really. How having one of the most feared beings in this world as your partner, made him feel not scared or nervous, but he felt more comfortable and safe.

'Of course, I'll have to learn how to fight on my own eventually, since I can't always rely on Grima always being there to help me. But then again, that's why we're going to Ferox in the first place; for me to learn how to fight for myself.' He thought, confidence beginning to replace the nervous feelings he had before. This might turn out well for him after all.

Unfortunately for him, fate had decided to play with the teen as he had just found his confidence restored.

"Graghhh."

Freezing in spot, Darren began to slowly turn around, breaking into a cold sweat as he could see the faint outline of a body in the darkness. Gripping his right hand tightly, the twin blades shot out of their case, quickly he brought them across his chest in what was hopefully resembled a defensive stance.

The risen in front of him just stood there. Unmoving as its' glowing eyes just started at him. Meanwhile Darren was just too panicked to make anything out of the situation, he was as motionless as the risen he faced, and his heart was currently hammering into his chest as he stood there. He eyed the rusted sword in the risens' arms. Should he make a run for it? Should he fight it? He didn't know.

A few more minutes passed as the two stared at each other in complete silence. Darren had slowly gone from terrified, to extremely confused. Why wasn't it doing anything? They usually attack the first thing that moves right? So focused on his thoughts, he nearly missed the glowing eyes rise above his head in attempt to look at something.

' _Wh-what happened_?' Mumbled a groggy and tired voice in his head. The feeling of a body stirring from the top of his head confirmed the awakened presence of its residential dragon.

'Risen.' He told it. Feeling the body above him immediately stiffen, he reasoned that Grima was now fully awake. Which could only be a good thing, right? Once the dragon saw the enemy in front of him, he asked in a confused voice. ' _Why is it just staring at me?_ '

'I don't know! I wanted to ask _you_ that!'

' _How would I know? I haven't done anything like this before!_ '

'Gah! What help are you? Just, get rid of it already!'

A pause.

 _'Why don't you just try fighting it?'_ The fell-dragon asked. The risen itself was a low level enemy, its' gear was clearly low in power and quality. Even the energy in it was barely enough to be registered by the dragons' senses.

Darren blinked at the suggestion, why didn't he just do that at the beginning? And wasn't he just too scared to move a minute ago? Even he could tell that it was a really weak risen. Once again he marvelled briefly at how quickly his attitude changed when Grima was with him. Taking a ready stance—arm outstretched with blades pointing forward—he waited to see if the action would get a response from the risen.

Grima, sensing the fight about to happen, flew off of his partners' head to land a short distance away. It was far enough to not accidentally be brought into the fight, and close enough to help the boy in case things got out of hand.

Almost as if recognizing the challenge, the risen brought its sword up, returning the gesture before charging at an insane speed and swinging wildly. Darren could barely get his weapon up in time to block the blade from cutting into his chest.

In an attempt of retaliation, the Hunter quickly stabbed his blades forward into the enemy's chest. His eyes widened in surprise when he actually saw it connect. The two stood there in silence as they remained motionless.

The risen had stood still when the blades pierced, looking at how they went through one side and out the other. Before making a sound that resembled a grunt, though in an inhumane voice, and punched the stunned boy across the face.

Gasping slightly at the hit, Darren stared the risen with his eyes narrowed as his brow furrowed in confusion before he got the reason why it didn't die. 'I haven't dealt enough damage yet! These guys don't die like normal people do!' He berated himself.

Getting an odd feeling from the thought, he shook his head quickly before focusing on his opponent. His eyes began to unconsciously trace themselves to the two holes his blades had made. He gulped audibly as he noticed how they were directly over where a human heart would be. Then he noticed something else; the purple fog flowing from both holes. His eyes widened as he felt something odd course through him. Strange. It was as if, all of a sudden, he felt…hungry… extremely hungry actually.

Grima watched as something changed within the boy. Maybe it was just the way he suddenly took a stance, or the odd look that was on his face as he eyed the risen. In a sudden blur of movement, Darren disappeared, then reappearing in front of the risen immediately slashing diagonally across its chest. Using the momentum of the slash, he spun before lashing at its face with his left elbow. The risen was starting to show signs of tiring; its movements were slowing down, and seemed to be breathing heavily. But Darren just kept on going faster and faster. The Hunter just kept on launching into a continuous onslaught; always spinning to get two or three more hits in before leaping back, charging in, and repeating the process. That isn't to say that he was never hit though, as small cuts could be seen across his arms and chest from where the risen had managed to land a few lucky hits.

"So… **_hungry!_** " Darren growled out, dashing the risen once again.

' _Hungry?_ ' Grima questioned. Why would he say that? And in the middle of battle too! He then noticed the boys' eyes; the crazed look in them, the pinprick size his pupils were. It even looked like they were glowing red in a way that reminded Grima of his own. The fact that they looked like that only after the fight turned in the favor of Darren, shocked the fell-dragon immensely. He pondered why they would be like this for a few seconds before realization hit like a ton of bricks: he was trying to consume the power held inside the risen. He was starving after only living off Grimas' energy for the few days he's been here, and since he wasn't given any when the fell-dragon was sleeping, he was desperate for a way to compensate for it. The power a risen had in it was close enough to match his, so would probably sustain the boy. Now this wouldn't surprise Grima if he were to try doing this in a few months or so, as it is a means of restoring power and to sustain oneself, but after only a few days here, it worried him. But Darren should not be trying this without any of his seals off, or it could be fatal!

Darren had reached the risen by the time Grima had come to this conclusion. Slashing one final time across its' torso with enough strength to slice the body in half. The body fell to the ground with a thud, the purple vapour also began to fall and fade away, but Darren stepped forward, hand outstretched and pointing to the dark energy. Slowly it began to flow towards him, small tendrils rising to meet his hand where a small ball of dark purple formed. Once the flow stopped and the small ball grew to about half of its original size, he raised his hand to face level. His mouth opened as it began to suck in the dark ball.

 _'Stop!_ ' A single word went through the crazed teens' mind. But the force it had was enough to snap him from his current state. His eyes turning to normal, focused on the ball in front of him. Crying out in shock at the unknown object he was currently holding, he lobbed the ball away from in fear. The dark object slowly faded away as it flew through the air.

Breathing heavily, Darren slowly turned to face Grima, his eyes were widened in horror, his face was pale and soaked with sweat from the earlier exertion. His voice was shaky, confused and most notable, scared.

"What… did I just do?" He whispered.

* * *

 **Yes. Cliffhanger! Arghh, I tried to lengthen this chapter more to compensate for the previous one, and I think I did that. And I'm sorry if the fight seemed a bit odd, I don't exactly know how to write them. Anyways, I already have where I want to go with after this chapter, so stay tuned please! If you enjoyed this chapter, or want to leave a comment on what you think could help, please feel free to leave a review.**


	4. Chapter 3

' _Darren, it's completely fine, you've got nothing to worry about._ '

"How was _that_ , completely fine!? What the hell was I doing there?" Darren cried out. He didn't know what exactly happened, since he blacked out after starring at the risen for too long. But he could still feel the intense feeling of hunger that was there. And to say he felt uneasy was an understatement.

His breathe was coming in as short, and staggered as he was trying to come to terms with the events that happened.

"I mean, what was I doing? What happened? What was that ball thing I was holding? WhythehellamIsodamn–"

 ***THUNK***

' _When I say things are fine, they're godsdamn fine…_ ' Grima muttered after knocking the hysterical boy out with an energy ball to the head. ' _Now I have to drag your body over to Ferox, fun…_ '

And so, the tiny dragon bit into the unconscious boys' hood, and proceeded to slowly drag him through the sand. Thinking that once Darren had come to, he'd have to explain that what had happened was not a bad thing, but _completely_. _Normal_.

 _'I swear you'd better not freak out again when you wake up. Or fighting risen will be the last thing you'll worry about_.' Grima growled, as he pulled the unconscious boy by the hood using his teeth.

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter 3

* * *

When Darren finally came around the first thing that he noticed was the sudden drop in temperature compared to the desert he remembered being in. Even the sunlight seemed cold to him. His first instinct was to figure out where he was.

'God, why does my face feel like it was dragged across a field of gravel?' He thought. The feeling of tiny scratches on his face made their presence noticeable. His face scrunched up in pain, making them hurt even more.

' _For the most part, you kinda were._ ' Responded an exhausted Grima. Who had, until recently, been sleeping on top of the unconscious boy. Now though, he was flying a small distance away from Darren's' scratched up face.

"Where are we?" He spoke up. His voice was coarse and dry.

' _Take a guess_.'

Opening his eyes Darren could see where Grima had somehow set up a campfire. The first thing he saw was the snow. That and how cold it was. Sitting up, he rubbed his arms with his hands to gain some friction. His clothing wasn't made to be warm in the slightest.

"Ferox? How'd we get here?" He said.

 _'I dragged you here after knocking you out during your little episode.'_ He responded. _'You're a lot heavier than I expected you know?'_

Darren sighed at the mention of the previous events. How he'd gone from perfectly sane (well as much as one would be when facing something like a risen) to some sort of monster hellbent on eating… something. He wasn't sure what happened but was determined it was something dangerous.

"So what happened then? Before my little… _'episode'_?" The Hunter asked.

'It's simple really,' Grima said casually. Pointing a wing to the boys' stomach, he continued. 'You were getting hungry from the lack of food. And while you were living off my energy as a result, you haven't had any since that afternoon. So when you saw how the risen had energy like mine, you took the chance to 'consume' it. Though I have to admit, I didn't expect you to be able to do that yet.'

Darren was silent as he was left to deal with the information. Snow was already beginning to fall when he finally spoke in an unsure voice.

"So nothing is wrong with me then? All of _that_ was just normal?"

The fell-dragon pondered for a moment on how to answer that. Sure, the boy had lead a normal life before his odd death. But then again, normal people don't suddenly drop into a dragons' subconsciousnes. And that dragon is apparently the evil death god of a video game that he played. Inwardly Grima sighed, 'What a predicament. I don't want to discourage him in anything, but I want him to trust me.'

Finally, he said in a voice as comforting as he could. 'Well, yes and no. Normally, being able to do such a thing would require a seal or two to be broken. And your reaction to the feeling was probably a little much, but I guess it's because it was so sudden and you were unprepared.' His voice changed to a more uplifting tone. 'But other than those, it would be completely normal to drain a risen of its' energy if you were low on food. You just have to be careful on the amount you take; too much could be fatal, and too little will have no effect.'

Darren let loose a breath he wasn't aware of holding. He was honestly relieved that nothing was wrong with him. Well, nothing wrong as someone who wasn't from this world was. But he was relieved nonetheless. Glad at being reassured by the fell-dragon, he gave a small smile. Standing up, he was about to start walking before realizing that he had no idea which direction they were supposed to go. He sheepishly grinned at Grima before asking which way they needed to go in.

' _This way_.' They began walking.

' _Wait_.' Grima said suddenly.

Stopping in his tracks, Darren was guessing that there were enemies nearby. Bandits? Risen? Tensing his body, he waited for the inevitable fight that he would have to face. His heart was already going into hyperdrive, and was pumping adrenaline through his system. He was confused when the little dragon turned around to face the opposite direction. Even more so when Grima began flying in that direction.

 _'This way.'_ He said, unaware of the irritated glare his partner gave him.

As his eye twitched, Darren began to walk towards the tiny dragon. Not noticing the sudden aura he was giving off, Grima shivered as he felt an extreme sense of animosity aimed directly at him. He managed to look behind in time to see a fist slam down onto the top of his head.

"Gods, don't do that! I actually thought we were under attack or something!" Darren yelled out. He pulled back his fist to see the mighty fell-dragon flutter around to the ground, in almost drunken-like movements. Finally reaching the ground, Grima landed in the snow with a soft crunch as the snow beneath him flattened.

 _'Owwww,'_ he groaned, voice muffled somehow by the snow his head was currently buried in. _'Hey, where am I?'_ Now his wings were desperately trying to pull him out of his small, cold prison.

Darren would have helped him out, if he weren't so busy rolling around in the snow laughing at his friends' situation. All his earlier tension had been replaced by a wide grin and teary eyes. His breathe was causing small puffs of air to form in the freezing cold that was undoubtedly Ferox.

"Ahh," Darren sighed in content from his position on the ground. "I definitely needed that." Getting up, he dusted off all the snow that was on him from his laughing in the snow. Grima was glaring daggers at the boy when their eyes met, having finally gotten his head out of the ground.

 _'Not funny.'_ The dragon growled out.

"Neither was your lack of direction." Darren shot back with a grin.

 _'...'_

Knowing that it would be pointless to continue arguing, Grima flew up and continued down the path they were taking. Inwardly, Grima had swore revenge on the boys' actions, but outside of his mind he sighed.

 _'This way.'_

It was nearly midday when they finally saw something that resembled the giant gate to Regna Ferox. Even from his position, Darren could see how massive the walls were. He'd always thought that they were tall, but this was taking it to new levels, literally.

"Woah…" he awed at the sight.

 _'Huh, I guess it does look like that show with those giants in it.'_ Grima mused.

"Can't say no to that…" the teen replied, still not taking his eyes off the wall.

 _'Why don't we get closer to get a better look?'_ Grima suggested, already moving in its' direction.

"Yeah, we shou-hey! Wait for me!" Snapping from his gaze, he ran towards the tiny dragon. "Wait!" He called out. "What if someone sees you?" They were almost at the top of the hill where they would find the gate and —more importantly— the guards. Not wanting to confront the Feroxi soldiers with the god of their enemies flying beside him.

"We need some kind of plan, I don't want to walk up to them then die immediately because they're suspicious of what you are." Darren grabbed Grima before he could go over the hill. The fell-dragon was about to speak when the teen cut him off.

"You're going to have to hide if you don't want us to keep walking around until we find a random village. Now come on, see if you can fit in my hood or something." Opening up the inside of his hood, Darren waited for the fell-dragon to hide in it.

 _'We don't have ti–'_ Grima tried again.

"It won't be so bad Grima, just for an hour or so and you'll be free to get out. Now ust get in th–"

 _'THEY ARE UNDER ATTACK!'_ Grima roared, finally unable to take the oblivious boys' constant talking.

Darren blinked once, then stood up and looked over the hill. True to the fell-dragons' words, the guards at the gate were being attacked by a group of what appeared to be bandits. Taking in the visuals of people swinging swords, lances and axes around like no tomorrow. He also saw dead people. Lots. He was a little relieved when they were mostly from the bandits' side, but it didn't help much.

"Why didn't you say so earlier?!" He asked incredulously.

 _'…'_

Grima then proceeded to slap the boy upside the head with one of his wings, before pointing at the Feroxi guards and saying in an cold tone. _'Help them. Now.'_

And not wanting to anger the dragon even more, he quickly ran off, pulling up his hood in the progress. Leaving Grima to stare at the battles from far away.

 _'You can do this Darren, now show 'em what you got…' he said softly, before muttering bitterly. 'I don't like sleeping out in the cold all the time you know...'_

* * *

Things weren't looking so good for the Feroxi at the moment. They had been doing fine against their melee fighters, using their armored knights to take on the front of the group. And it was working too. That is, until the mages showed up. Wiping out most of the armored guards, the bandits were able to steadily weaken the defenders. It was unfortunate that the Feroxi believed the bandits to be Ylisseans who wanted to form some kind of alliance with them. But after multiple attempts at attacking their towns, they all could not do much but always suspect any 'allies' to be bandits in hiding.

"Raimi, we can't hold them off long enough for reinforcements to arrive!" Yelled out a knight from below. The armored warrior was stationed by the stairs that led up to where the entrance was.

Raimi, the captain of the gates was currently observing the battle field with a grim look on her face. When they were denied entry into Regna Ferox, the bandits had attacked the guards. Killing everyone that barred their way.

"We'll have to hold out then! These bandit scums won't be leaving here alive!" She shouted back. Looking over the wall, she aimed one of her javelins at one of the enemies' mages. Heaving the object, she watched it arc through the air and plunged into the torso of the unsuspecting mage.

Having given the knight near the magic wielding attacker a much needed break, Raimi began to toss out more javelins into the battlefield. Many of which, had hit their marks, leaving dead corpses impaled to the ground.

Moving her gaze back to the fights, the captain watched as _even more_ of the savages made their way onto the scene. They were just about to make contact when she saw something move from behind them.

Suddenly one of the bandits from the back of the group dropped dead onto the snow. Most of those nearby turned to see a figure crouched over the dead body. The person was wearing a hood over their face, obscuring most of the peoples' details under a shade under the cloth. But with what they could see, the person was definitely male in body build and facial structure.

The man was silent as the others stared, pushing up with one of arms, he stood. The hood fell off his head to reveal a teenager. His black hair ruffling in the cold breeze as he stared back at the momentarily stunned bandits and Feroxi guards. The silence was broken as he gave a small grin and said, "I'd like it if all of you left now." The cheery tone was ignored as everyone could hear the deeper voice of anger.

The bandits themselves gaped at the young man before breaking out into laughter. No one noticed the grin of the boy become strained as they laughed at him.

Gripping his right hand, the Feroxi watched as two blades shoot out of a metal brace on his right arm. Ending at almost half the length of his arm. Each blade curved up and down at multiple points, before ending facing forwards. Leaping to the now to silent enemies, the boy stabbed another man through the chest, then retracting the blade, he let the body slide off the blades. The teenager then taunted the bandits.

"And I thought _I_ was bad at fighting! You guys are like a bunch of rocks!"

This resulted in a roar of fury from the enemy, and multiple bandits charging the boy.

"Get the little shit!" One of them, presumably the leader, shouted.

And so the fights continued. An archer beside Raimi, who had been watching the scene play out, asked in a confused voice.

"Captain Raimi. What do we do about the boy?"

She watched as the teen was evading most of the strikes with some difficulty, but was still dealing the same damage back with those odd looking blades. Shrugging, she looked back down to the fighting below her.

"We'll deal with him later, now keep shooting!" She barked.

* * *

Darren, who was trying desperately to dodge all of the attacks aimed at him, was yelling inwardly at himself for trying to be a show off.

'You.' ***Dodge*** 'God-' ***Slash*** 'Damn-' ***Block*** 'IDIOT!' ***Jump*** 'You just _had_ to make the _cool_ entrance did you!?'

' _Bahaha what were you doing_?' Laughed an amused Grima. Bad mood from earlier completely forgotten. ' _"I'd like it if all of you left now."_ ' He mocked, and then laughed again.

Darren's face burned in embarrassment from the dragons taunting. He was about to yell at the laughing dragon, but was cut off by an axe nearly severing his head.

'Help me!' The teen cried out, now in the process of dodging a sword. Meanwhile the ever irritating snickering of his partner was present. It was hard enough with six people chasing you around, but with Grima over there laughing his proverbial ass off. It was nearly impossible.

"Graaah stop laughing!" He shouted, causing everyone chasing him to stop moving. And stare at the boy in mass confusion. 'Huh? Why did they stop?'

A moment later screams, javelins and arrows filled the air. Darren stumbled backwards as the bodies fell to the floor.

Darren stared at the bodies, the reality of the fact that he had killed a few people made its way into his mind. But the odd thing was: he didn't feel anything, no sadness for the dead, no feeling of regret. In fact, he was slightly anticipating his next fight. That alone left him suspecting Grima for doing something to him. But before he could turn on the dragon, a commanding voice from behind him called out.

"Halt!"

Darren stopped mid-step at the voice, it sounded strangely familiar. Turning around, he saw the source of the voice.

'Oh shit, it's Raimi.' He thought, already fearing for his life, or chances to finally eat something.

 _'The knight that accuses you of being bandits?'_ Grima questioned.

'Definitely.'

 _'Well…Good luck then.'_

'Wait! Don't leave me here!' He all but cried out to the dragon.

"What are you doing here stranger?" Raimi questioned. Though from her voice, you'd think she'd demanded it.

"Huh? What do you mean?" He dumbly responded.

Raimi looked at him with an odd expression before trying again. "I mean. Why did you come here. And fight?" She gestured to the ground where the fighting had gone.

"A-ah you mean that?" He rubbed the back of his head while laughing nervously. "I thought you guys needed help. So I guessed that maybe you could use a hand?"

The captain bristled at the mention of needing help from an outsider, but calmed herself down when she remembered the reinforcements the enemy got. Without him showing up and distracting most of them with little display, more of the guards would have been killed. With a calm voice Raimi thanked the boy for his help.

"Thank you, things would have been harder if you didn't show up. Now, I presume you didn't just come here hoping to fight bandits, correct?" She asked.

Darren himself was surprised that Raimi, the stubborn captain who didn't let you go into Regna Ferox even though it's extremely clear that you have Ylissean royalty with you, had not only thanked him. But also tried to make a joke.

"I, uh, need a place to stay and um, food." He responded dumbly. Still trying to process what just happened. Raimi nodded her head to the answer before leading him to the entrance. Then she told him that she was going to bring him to the nearest town there was. Though Darren was sure she just there to take him out just in case he tried doing anything suspicious.

' _At least you're inside the walls now_.' Grima said. ' _So things should go a lot smoother now that you can at least get a place to sleep. Then we can see if someone can train you how to fight using your weapon._ '

'Oh yeah, I forgot you're still outside Grima. How're you going to get in here? Don't tell me that you are going to leave me alone to fend for myself are you?' He panicked.

 _'Don't worry,'_ Grima said nonchalantly. _'I'll fight a way inside, maybe in a few hours. So no messing up okay?'_

'Alright, I'll try.' He responded nervously.

 _'Good, call me only if it's extremely necessary. I'll be there as fast as I can.'_ The dragon assured him.

The mental conversation ended there, leaving Darren to wonder what exactly he was to do until Grima arrived. He soon remembered that he had no money on him, so there goes the option of actually getting something done.

Something at the end of his view brought the boy out of his thoughts. In the distance a giant building appeared, it looked like a fortress, and ominous looking. Suddenly he noticed that they were heading towards the giant building.

"Uh, where exactly are we going?" He asked nervously. Raimi turned her head to look sidelong at him, before facing the building again. "The East Khan's castle of course."

So surprised by this, Darren stumbled over his own feet in attempt to stop moving. "Wh-what are we doing going there?" He asked incredulously, getting up from his fall.

The captains' face was still neutral, but her voice was clearly amused as she continued walking. "You wanted a place to stay and rest yes?" At his nod she continued. "Then this is the most I could reward you for your help. Just be sure not to do anything while you stay there." Warning him with some aggression in her voice. Unable to say anything else, Darren also continued to walk, trailing behind the knight as they made their way to the large building.

* * *

 **AN: So I'm trying to get these chapters out as much as possible, so I apologize if updates are really inconsistent. I'm usually a pretty lazy guy, so getting these done on a time period will be next to impossible, but I will try to upload weekly. If not it's usually whenever I can. So, if you've been enjoying this so far, please leave a review and remember to** **favourite** **for more updates soon to come.**


	5. Chapter 4

An hour or so later the two finally arrived at the East Khans' castle. Darren was finally able to get over his previous shock when the sounds of giant doors slamming closed was heard behind him. The inside of the castle wasn't that much different than the outside; not too showy or fancy, it was almost bare of any decorations. But then again, warriors don't really have any need for stuff like that. Raimi then lead him to a hall of what he guessed was the barracks, from just how many room there seemed to be. Stopping at one of the first doors there, Raimi turned to face the teen.

"You may stay here for now," she told him. "Food will be prepared shortly, as will your meeting with the Khan." With that, she quickly left the now stunned boy, who had until then been dreaming about food, to stare at his now closed door in frozen shock.

"No way…" he finally managed to whisper out.

–-–

The Other Way - Chapter Four

–-–

'Grimaaa! Heelp!' Darren mentally screamed at his partner. He was now inside his room, pacing around like a madman. His hair was ruffled by the many times her ran his hand through it. The room was pretty decent by his standards, there was a bed, a desk supplied with an ink container and quill, a small wooden closet, and a window that had a nice view of the houses surrounding the castle.

' _Khan Flavia_?' Came the confused voice of Grima. ' _What are you doing getting the attention of the Khan for?!_ '

'I don't know! Raimi just showed me where my room was, and then told me about meeting the Khan when we're going to eat!'

' _Well it would most likely be just a thank you fo– wait, did you just say eat?_ ' The dragon interrupted his own thoughts. His voice all of a sudden becoming more curious (and hungry) than reassuring at the mention of food.

Darren shook his head in disbelief, but after remembering Grima can't see it, settled for complaining to the fell-dragon.

'Now's not the time for food Grima! How close are you so you to here?!'

 _'I haven't eaten anything in over a thousand years Darren._ ' Grima reminded the boy. _'But I guess I'm about an hour away. Sneaking around this place is tough work you know? Maybe as bonus training we should have you try not to get caught by the guards here.'_ The dragon mused with an evil tone in his voice.

'No way!' Darren vehemently denied. 'I'm sure they suspect me for _something_! I don't want to die because I was 'training' and got caught!'

 _'It was a joke Darren, calm down_.' He advised. ' _Meeting this, Flavia as a giant bundle of nerves is just asking for bad luck._ '

Taking a deep breath, Darren tried to calm down as he was told to. Then repeated the process for another minute until he thought he was more level-headed. 'Okay, I think I'm ready.' He thought confidently.

' _Good luck then. I'll see if I can show up later. Remember, if you really need help, just scream and call for me_.'

With that, their mental conversation ended, leaving Darren to stare out in open space as he was left to wonder what this meeting was about. 'She could just be thanking me for helping out, and probably to give me a few rations.' He reasoned. 'Heck, she could probably point me in the right direction of finding someone to train me.'

A knock at the door and a voice telling him that dinner would be set in a minute broke the boy out of his little trance. Suddenly becoming a bundle of nerves again, Darren tried to calm himself down as he made his way down the halls. Following the smell of food, he found himself at the doorway to a very large room, which was probably the mess hall.

In the room multiple people were already seated and eating. Many were talking among themselves, about what, he couldn't make out. The table layout was so that they were perpendicular to the door, with benches running along the sides of the chairs.

"Ah," said a voice from the end of the table. "So the guest of honour finally arrived." Silence filled the room as multiple people stopped their chattering and stared at the newcomer. The one who had spoken, was the East Khan herself, Flavia. Who was seated in her own chair at the end of the table.

Like a deer caught in headlights, Darren stood there frozen as eyes passed over him. Before catching himself and nodding, not trusting his voice _not_ to crack because of his nerves.

"Well don't just stand there, sit down, there's plenty of space." She said gesturing to an empty spot to her left. Quickly moving to the seat, the black haired boy sat down stiffly, with his back straight and arms at his sides. Not even daring to move a muscle.

Flavia laughed at his behaviour, immediately losing most of her intimidating looks. "You don't have to be so stiff you know? You aren't in any kind of trouble, I just want to talk about a few things." She told him in an amused tone.

He relaxed slightly, but not by much as he eyed the other table occupants warily. Soon he was looking down at his food, also looking at the dish before slowly eating.

Flavia was silent during the whole display the teen was putting on, watching in amusement. A few of those sitting nearby chuckled to themselves.

Coughing into his hand, Darren decided to get out of this awkward mess he put himself through.

"Darren," he said, sticking a hand –not the one he just coughed in– towards the Khan with a nervous smile. He was a little surprised when Flavia actually shook his hand with a laugh.

"East Khan Flavia, that was something else you pulled at the gates you know? I never thought anyone would be crazy enough to do that." She shook her head in either amazement or shock, he couldn't tell.

"Y-yeah that," he muttered while rubbing the back of his head, reddening slightly from the praise. "I have no idea what came over me there. I'm guessing myself as lucky that I didn't die."

"Well from what the report said, it seemed to have been quite interesting. And there was something else," she eyed him curiously, "'an odd looking blade'?" She quoted.

Thinking that the 'reporter' must have been Raimi, he nodded his head in affirmation, Darren raised his right arm to show Flavia the blade compartment. He gripped the small cord that laced around the inside of his hand, which in turn pulled the two blades out. Flavia stared at the two blades for a few moments, before nodding and appeared to go into deep thought. Quietly, Darren released his grip on the cord and continued to eat. Listening to the conversations around him as he shovelled food into his mouth.

"The reports had said that you were here to re-supply on foods and look for a place to sleep," Flavia finally said. "Was that all you came here for?"

Remembering the main reason for his travels, Darren quickly said, "I was looking for someone to train me how to fight."

Flavia looked surprised, before quickly recovering. "Really? You seemed to have been fine on your own from what I was told." She mused.

"That was luck." Darren deadpanned.

"Okay then," she relented. "So that's it? You came to Regna Ferox so you could find someone to teach you?"

Another nod from the boy.

"I see…" she trailed off.

Darren was left to ponder what was going to happen in silence as Flavia had drifted off once again into deep thought. Staring at his now empty plate that he had finished not too long ago. When the East Khan spoke again, it took a while for him to register what she just said.

"How would you like to be my champion Darren?"

Mind whirring, he could only utter an unintelligent, "Huh?" Before his eyes widened in realization and he started to panic in confusion.

"Why would you want _me,"_ gesturing to himself wildly. "As your champion?!" He nearly shrieked.

Flavia smirked before answering nonchalantly, shrugging to add to the image. "I've got no one else to be my champion. And the tournament to see who will be the next head Khan is around next week."

"And what if I don't want to be your champion?" Darren challenged. But knowing full well that only outsiders can participate in these tournaments, otherwise there would be blood feuds between both sides, they wouldn't give up on an opportunity to gain an outsider with potential. Even if that outsider was himself.

"I don't know." Her nonchalant voice still there. "But I know that if you were to stay as one of my champions, you'd be able to stay here free of charge. Not to mention I could easily get someone to train you while you stay."

Not wanting to pass up the precious opportunity to accomplish one of his goals –even if he was risking his life by doing so– he accepted the offer.

Flavia grinned widely at the boy, reaching over to roughly pat him on the shoulder.

"Good, good. Now," she got up before walking to an exit meanwhile still talking to him. "I'm going to see if I can get you started on those lessons. So feel free to wander around, just remember to get to sleep early. I plan on starting you _very_ early in the morning." And left, disappearing past the door to do whatever Khans do.

Darren also got up, picking up his plate in the progress, before walking out the door in search of more food.

Having finally found more food to eat, Darren took his plate to his room to eat in private.

Now seated on his desk, the boy was ready to dig into the food that has evaded him for almost an entire week. Raising both arms, one fork in his right hand, knife in the other, his expression now a mouth-watering grin as he was about to dig in.

* **sniff** *

Slowly his face turned from extremely feral hunger to completely disgusted in the span of a few seconds, immediately losing his appetite.

"Oh god…" he groaned, raising a now forkless hand to his nose. Now noticing just how horrible he smelt, with the sweat from travelling in the desert, to the rusty smell of blood that had been there since his fighting the risen, to the deaths of the bandits a few hours ago. Anyways, he did not smell good.

"I'm gonna have to take a shower before I do anything else, sheesh I reek." He muttered wrinkling his nose in the progress.

Walking to the closet he found extra cloths, clearly a bigger size than he was, but it was clothes nonetheless.

Exiting the room, carrying the extra clothes in his arms, Darren set off in search of a way to bathe himself in before he could become capable of knocking himself out just by his smell alone. Unknown to the teen, something small dashed into the room and closed the door behind it. Confusing the hell out of a Feroxi servant who had been there to see it happen. But when a low chuckle could be heard from the other side of the door, the servant dropped her things and ran away as fast as she could.

* * *

After asking many of the people living within the castle, Darren had finally found were the baths were. It may have taken him an extra half hour, but it was surely worth it. And it already seemed to be getting darker outside, so it seemed to be good timing.

Now wearing the extra clothes that he had found, the teen was making his way to his room. It turned out, being one of the Khans' champions has its perks. All he had to do was ask one of the servants that were nearby to clean his cloths and they would say that it would be ready by the morning. Neat.

Now outside his door, he was about to open it, but then he heard noises on the other side. Quietly he pressed his ear to the door to hear the sounds better.

 ***omnom nom nom***

Munching? That couldn't be right. Flinging open the door, he stepped in and quickly shut the door behind him. The sight in front of him was either enough to make him burst out laughing, or begin burning in rage.

Grima was on the table, over _his_ plate, and was clearly eating _his_ food. While this probably should have set the boy in a rage against the intruding fell-dragon, he didn't, well, not _immediately_ anyways.

Grima had his mouth open, and was ready to devour a piece of the chicken in front of him. Drool was visible on the fell-dragons mouth, as there was a small pool of it under his jaw. The funniest thing though had to be the way his eyes were; all six seemed to have been bugging out of their sockets at the appearance of the boy. It even looked like the dragon was nervously sweating.

' _H-hey Darren!_ ' Grima said in a nervous voice. Immediately backing away from the dish. ' _I wanted to surprise you when I got here, b-but then I saw all this food here and I didn't want it to go to waste. So I ate a bit of it._ '

Slowly the teen lowered his gaze to inspect the plate. What used to be a small mountain of food was now devoid of any of its previous contents. The only thing left was a single chicken leg and a half-eaten piece of bread. Looking back up he saw Grima was –if possible– looking even more nervous than before; his multiple eyes shifting around the room.

Darren decided that revenge could wait until later, he sighed sadly. Before giving small smile to the dragon.

"Fine, I'll forgive you. But only because of the whole 'I haven't eaten in over a thousand years' thing, I'd hate to have to go through that too." He shuddered at the thought, and then walked over to his bed to lie down.

Grima, who had been watching the boy just in case he made a dash to extract revenge for the food, relaxed visibly when Darren had went to his bed. And then quickly went back to eating the remaining food.

"Turns out, I'm apparently Flavia's champion now." Darren said suddenly.

The news must have been startling to the fell-dragon; because the moment the word 'champion' came out he choked on the chicken leg he had been eating.

Darren watched as the small dragon began rolling on the table, his upper wings curling around his neck while the others were flailing around helplessly. Soon, he also began rolling around in his bed, although, it was out of laughter instead.

Eventually Grima managed to get the offending piece of chicken out with a cough. And was panting from the lack of air he had.

' _What… do you mean… champion?'_ He eventually managed to gasp out.

Darren sat up and looked at the dragon. "I think it had to do with me being the only person capable of entering the tournament at the time."

Finding his breath, Grima asked calmly. ' _Did they at least give you the option to decline?_ '

"Yeah, she did –and I only accepted because of the deal she offered."

Grima closed his jaw, preventing the angry berating that was about to be released. Instead he asked again with mild curiosity in his voice. ' _So, what was this deal?_ '

Darren brightened visibly. "Flavia offered that if I become her champion I could stay here for free! And, that she would find someone to train me as I stayed here."

'And you're sure about this? Absolutely sure?' The fell-dragon pressured, wanting to know if there was any trace of doubt in the choice.

A response of confidence followed by a smirk was what he got. So with a sigh he relented. ' _I guess I can't stop you, but, just be careful. Doing this means you're in a lot of danger in the arena. And I can't have you dying on me_.'

"Trust me, I won't let that happen anytime soon." Darren yawned. "Ah well, guess I'll go to bed now. Flavia said she'd find someone to begin my training with in the morning, and I don't want to be tired for it. 'Night Grima." And with that he lay down on his bed again and closed his eyes. A minute later his breathing slowed, and came out softer, signalling his drift into unconsciousness.

Grima flew up from the table and went to the base of the bed. Curling up into a coil, the fell-dragon was also soon fast asleep.

* * *

 **AN: I hate distracting myself. Honestly, I had like half of this chapter done the day after posting the other one, but then I decided that I should do a whole bunch of other things and never got to finish it. Anyways, if you've enjoyed this chapter and want to be there when more come out, favorite and follow this series. Also leave a review if you want. Until next time.**


	6. Chapter 5

It was early morning in Regna Ferox when Grima awoke, the little dragon stretched its body and yawned. Groggily, he rose above the bed. Like most cold-blooded beings, Grima was affected by the cold, and was still tired from the Feroxi temperature. And needed time to fully wake up.

Looking over to Darren, Grima found the boy sleeping contently. Wrapped up a little in his blankets, he was probably unaffected by the colder temperature outside.

So like most good friends do to others, he decided to wake the boy from his sleep.

And promptly shot the boy with a small ball of dark energy.

It wouldn't be enough to injure him of course, but it was more than enough to startle him awake.

Darren bolted awake as the shot connected, and attempted to stand up on the bed, momentarily forgetting where he was at the moment. Unfortunately this led to him getting tangled in the blankets he was in and somehow managed to fling himself off the side of the bed.

Now a heap of limbs and fabric on the floor, Darren groaned as Grima began laughing as his misfortune.

"Ow…"

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Five

* * *

Darren was muttering to himself as he made his way down the halls of the castle. Once again cursing evil tiny dragons that shouldn't exist. After he had finally gotten out of the blankets Darren had decided to find out if his original clothes were cleaned, and also to possibly find breakfast.

Passing by one of the servants in the halls, he asked if his clothes from yesterday was finished. The servant was a little suspicious about who he was, but when Darren told about how he was the Khan's champion he eased up a bit. Telling him that it would probably be ready during breakfast.

'On the thought of breakfast…' Darren thought to himself, smirking as he made his way to what was probably where the kitchen was.

* * *

Grima was lounging around in Darrens' room, unable to go out and do anything at the moment without risking suspicion towards his partner/friend. He wasn't sleepy anymore and was getting somewhat restless. With all that happened in the past few days, whether it was escaping from dangerous hordes of risen, or just walking here, the two were at least doing something. Now here he was, staring out the small window into the snow covered lands of Regna Ferox.

' _This is boring…_ ' Grima sighed.

The dragon found it somewhat humorous how impatient he was for someone who was trapped within the depth of their own mind for a little over a thousand years.

 _'It's not_ my _fault it's amusing to be with him._ ' He grumbled to himself.

Turning away from the window he glided back to the bed. Waiting for Darren to arrive with breakfast. 

* * *

Darren had been helping himself to whatever he could get his hands on in the mess hall. He had no idea what half of the items were named; all he knew was that it tasted good. He was so busy gorging himself that he didn't notice the entrance of the Khan behind him.

"Ah Darren, there you are." She said, walking towards him.

The boy turned around to face the Khan, a plate full of food meant for a certain fell-dragon occupying his hands.

"Morning Fl– Khan Flavia." He corrected himself.

Flavia gave an amused smile at the greeting, before waving a hand at her side casually. "You don't have to be so formal, Flavia'll do just fine." She said.

"Oh, alright then."

"I take it you had a good night's rest?" She asked.

"Yeah, best I've had in days." He responded cheerfully, knowing full well that even though it didn't compare to the beds in his previous life, that they were still better than sleeping on the ground, or a rock.

"Good to know," she eyed his plate curiously. "Well, I was going to show you where your lessons would be taking place, but I think I'll just let you eat first."

"Huh? This isn't for me." He said, immediately regretting doing so right after.

Flavia gave him a blank stare. "What do you mean–"

"It's for… later!" he said quickly. "I was going to leave it in my room and eat after my lessons."

Flavia continued to stare at him as he finished. By now Darren was beginning to sweat nervously. Finally the Khan seemed to dismiss the odd answer in favour of a different subject.

"Okay then," she said slowly. "You go do that and come back here once you're done, then I'll show you where it'll be."

Inwardly Darren sighed in relief, but outside he just nodded his head and quickly left the room. Not wanting to appear anymore odd than he probably already seemed.

Opening his door with one hand while balancing the plate in the other, he entered the room, closing it quietly before heading to the table and setting the plate down. Darren watched as Grima slithered out of the blankets like a snake and blindly went to the food, the dragons' snout tilted upwards and a tongue flickering in and out every so often. Flying off the bed towards the food Grima seemed to snap out of his little act and faced the teen.

' _Thanks_.' Was all he said before leaping upwards and diving into the food.

Darren sighed as he watched the little dragon tear into the breakfast, before giving a small smile. "I'm going to meet up with Flavia now, she's gonna show me where I'll be getting trained. So feel free to watch once you're done." He told Grima before turning to the door and leaving.

Grima poked his head out from inside a pie he had previously been eating. He stared at the door for a few moments, obviously thinking about something. Seeming to have made a decision, he began devouring his food at an even faster rate than before. 

* * *

Finding Flavia again had been easy for Darren. She was eating (obviously) in the mess hall when he arrived. Once she saw him enter the room she pushed away her plate and approached him, those that were in the room parted as she walked.

"Ready now?" The Khan asked, stopping in front of him.

With a nod from the boy she led him out of the large room. They both walked down halls, eventually they even left the castle. At the moment they were heading in the direction of a large building that could be seen in the distance.

Inside Darren was a mixed bundle of emotions; he felt excited, anxious, even a little scared at what he was about to do. Finally he was getting something done. This was his first step towards doing something that would actually impact the world he was living in.

"So do you know who the person that's going to be training me is?" He asked after the thought entered his little internal monologue.

Flavia shrugged as she was walking. "I asked for a favor from someone I know. He said he had someone who now has a lot of free time on his hands. Never said who though." She said indifferently. "Says he just lost his job or something and could be spared."

"Is this person good though?" Darren pressed. Ignoring a sudden nagging thought in the back of his mind.

"He wouldn't send me someone who isn't." Flavia replied gruffly, and gave the boy a small frown.

The conversation ended at that. Darren was left to ponder with his thoughts as he followed the Khan to the rapidly approaching building.

A bit more than half an hour had passed since the two had left the East Khan's castle. Once they actually got there, Darren had found out the true nature of the building. It was actually a very large barracks. The pair walked around it and headed towards the back. There was a clearing that had a few wooden posts and some targets in the distance. Most likely the training area. In the center, closer to the building, was a large portion of cleared snow in a circle. With a few stone bleachers located at the side closest to the barracks. As Flavia walked into the circle she turned to Darren, who until then had been observing his surroundings.

"You'll stay here for a good portion of the day, your teacher should be arriving here soon." She informed him. "Well good luck Darren, I'm expecting results you know, I'd like to be in control by the end of this."

Darren grinned confidently, even though he knew he'd have absolutely no chance of winning the tournament. "I'll do my best Flavia." He said.

Nodding her head, Flavia began walking towards her castle.

'Well then, guess I'll just have to wait until my teacher gets here.' Darren thought, walking towards the stands.

"And where do you think you're going?" Said a rough voice behind him.

Darren had frozen the moment the voice was heard. It was male, and extremely familiar to the boy. Slowly he turned his head to the newcomer.

Standing there wearing his myrmidon clothes, wielding what unmistakably is a killing edge, messy dark brown hair, and a small scowl on his face, was Lon'qu. And it was obvious that he didn't want to be there either.

"I asked you a question." He growled out.

Snapping back to attention Darren replied weakly. "I was waiting for my combat teacher."

"Well here I am, now let's get this over with." Lon'qu said curtly.

The myrmidon withdrew his blade and walked to one of the sides in the arena, and waited silently for the boy to also enter.

"Wait a sec," Darren said nervously. "Are we just going straight into sparring?!"

"I believe in learning through experience, now hurry up." He half responded, half ordered the other boy.

Slowly Darren entered the arena, standing opposite of Lon'qu. The myrmidon raised an eyebrow as he saw that the younger teen had no weapon on his person. "Do you not have a weapon?" He questioned.

Giving a nervous laugh he extended the blades in the case on his right arm. Lon'qu looked at them for a moment, surprise was seen in his eyes before they returned back to their normal hard gaze, though they looked more cautious than before. And held his killing edge tighter than before.

As if an unheard bell sounded, the two shot forward. Though Darren could already tell how unmatched he was in comparison to his opponent. It was as if he couldn't touch Lon'qu; he was always missing by the barest of margins, and couldn't react fast enough to block or counter one of his own attacks. Several cuts made themselves known on various locations on his arms and torso, not enough to be lethal, but more than enough to let him know they were there.

'Faster.' Darren told himself.

Trying to get past his teachers defences he tried being more unpredictable; throwing out spin attacks using his momentum and aiming high and low. And it seemed to work for a while. Unfortunately for him, Lon'qu seemed to adjust to this after a few attacks.

 _'So how're things going?'_ Said an amused voice in his head.

'Not now Grima, I gotta focus here.' He growled out internally. Blocking the sword aimed for his mid-section.

 _'It looks like you're getting completely rolled over by this guy.'_ Laughed the fell-dragon.

'Of course I am!' Darren retorted angrily. 'Lon'qu isn't some stupid bandit with hardly any fighting skills. There's a reason he was Basilio's champion for so long!'

A sharp hit to the side of his head snapped the boy out of his mental conversation.

"Pay attention!" Snapped Lon'qu.

' _What he said._ ' Grima said cheerfully.

Anger rising at the dragon's taunting, Darren lashed out with renewed determination. Momentarily catching Lon'qu off guard and nicking the side of his face. The both of them froze as a small trickle of blood flowed through the cut. Lon'qu's eyes narrowed as the other boys' widened.

' _You're toast._ '

Immediately Darren could feel multiple blows hit him all over the place. And had no way of defending himself against them. The last hit was a blow to the head using the hilt of the sword, and since Darren was barely able to stand by this point, he simply fell over.

"Not bad," Lon'qu complemented, watching as the other boy struggled to stand up. Lifting the killing edge to his side once more he looked the other boy in the eye and continued.

"Now, again."

* * *

The second time hadn't gone as well either for Darren, who was sweating despite the cold, whereas Lon'qu looked barely winded by the spar. Both were currently taking a break, though it was more meant for Darren than the other. Lon'qu had some healing salves that were used to heal the various cuts the younger teen had all over himself. They weren't the most pleasant smelling, but they got the job done effectively. Even if they burned like hell.

Grima was laughing up a storm in Darren's mind. He found the little dragon hiding on top the roof of the barracks, peering over the edge. How he managed to get there Darren had no idea. All he knew was that he was going to get the little dragon back.

"It's a good start." Lon'qu said from beside him. The cut from earlier was barely noticeable now that he put the salve on. Both males were currently sitting on the lowest seats of the bleachers.

"You really think so?" Darren muttered dryly, and then winced as he placed more of the salve on more of hits cuts. 'Jeez it's like I through a blender.'

' _You might as well have._ ' Grima agreed. _'It's no wonder this guy can learn Astra later on.'_

Lon'qu continued talking, unintentionally interrupting the conversation between the Hunter and fell-dragon.

"Most people wouldn't have been able to block as many of my attacks as you did, or lasted as long, even if this is just practice."

Surprised at the compliment or maybe it was just a fact, whatever it was, Darren was thrown off by the comment, and simply stared at him for a few moments.

Abruptly Lon'qu stood up again. Brushing off the remains of snow that clung to his clothes. The myrmidon walked off the seats towards the small arena again.

"Break over now, let's continue." He said without looking back. The barest twitches of his mouth was seen as the still seated teen groaned miserably. 'I guess this could keep my mind off what happened before.' Lon'qu thought to himself.

* * *

Darren staggered into his room. He hadn't even bothered with dinner when he got back, the boy was barely conscious and was really close to passing out. Barely even noticing the entrance of Grima, who came through the window which had been left slightly opened. Dragging his feet behind him, Darren collapsed onto his bed. Last thing he remembered was what Lon'qu had told him before they separated.

' _I'll see you tomorrow for more sparring.'_

"Ughhh." Was all he said before his head fell onto his pillow, probably falling asleep before it even landed.


	7. Chapter 6

**AN: Eyo I'm back with another chapter. So summer just started and I've been playing my games non-stop ever since. Though I haven't forgotten this fic, I just get distracted really easily. So I'm sorry for those who were interested in this story that didn't get the chapters they wanted. So uh, I want to write a response to a review that I got a while ago. **

**First off, there really aren't any classes, there are no second or master seals for the people in the world of Fire Emblem, instead think of it as Grima giving Darren equipment and a name just for the hell of it. You can still think of him as an assassin, or thief, but just with different weapons (yes, the 's' was on purpose *wink*). As he will being doing activities an assassin/thief would be doing.**

 **The reason he needs to train _I_ thought was kind of obvious, but in case you hadn't noticed, Darren can't _actually_ fight. Sure chapter 3 he fought that one risen, but not only did he not remember, he was working with the instincts of a risen to kill and he was low on energy so was also madly hungry. And with the bandits at Ferox? He attacked when they weren't looking, and then proceeded to run around dodging attacks from the bunch that were scrambling to get him. And why they went to Regna Ferox in the first place? What better place to find someone to train you than the land of fighting? Plegia wouldn't appeal to anyone with a reasonable mindset, and travelling to Ylisse with their enemies' god is a sure way to get imprisoned and possibly killed. They have enough troubles and would probably be suspicious of _any_ person coming from Plegia. Sorry if that wasn't made clear for those that read, but hopefully if you stuck around to read this it makes sense now. You can't grab a sword and expect yourself to take down a trained enemy, likewise with a tome.**

 **Now for Flavia's reasoning to accept Darren without any reasons? There wasn't much for her to lose. The tournament was soon and she had no one capable of participating. So when our protagonist shows up, she gets a lucky break. And it wasn't like she was in any danger. When you recruit her in the game, she has reasonably high base stats, and they're higher than those of any Shepherds at the beginning, so she would _definitely_ have no problem with dealing with Darren -whose stats would be somewhat similar to Donnel- should he pose a threat. And that would apply to Raimi too. Lon'qu? Phtt ahahaha, please.**

* * *

Lon'qu looked down at the arena he had fought in a week ago, the same one where he had lost his status as the West Khans champion to that 'Marth' person. He regretted not being able to finish the match quick enough, but it was as if 'Marth' knew his every move.

He still couldn't explain why he froze in the middle of the fight. His closest explanation would be that he… felt something... odd.

Lon'qu watched as that very same person walked onto the training grounds. Inwardly he was simmering with anger. If he had another match he was positive he would win, maybe.

"It's not that bad is it Lon'qu?" Said an amused voice from behind.

He didn't have to turn to know who the voice belonged to.

"Khan Basilio." He said gruffly.

Basilio laughed at his former champion's attitude, giving the grumpy young man a good natured slap on the shoulder.

"You can challenge him for the position _after_ the tournament is finished. Flavia said that she has a new champion that could prove a bit of a challenge and I would like for him to be in good condition for it."

Lon'qu gave a small huff in reply. He may have lost to 'Marth' but he had won against every champion the East Khan threw at him thus far, and would continue to do so. Others could say that he's being overconfident in his skills, but he knew that it was simply a fact. But he was obviously knocked off a peg or two when he lost against the stranger, and didn't take it well.

"Say, how is your 'student' progressing?" Basilio said in an attempt to change the topic. He was also curious as to why Flavia had pulled out that favour that he was indebted to to find someone capable of training someone else. He hadn't given much thought at the time, but know he was interested.

"Darren's not half bad." Lon'qu replied, also wanting to get off the sour spot. "It's impressive how fast he's advancing."

It was true too. In only a few days of constant sparring the boy has learned how to fight at a level where he wasn't just slicing at an random –if not well timed– moments and getting lucky. 'Very lucky,' he thought, memory of where he had been cut during theif first spar coming to mind.

"Is he now?" Basilio mused, rubbing his chin in the progress. At his former champion's nod he grinned. "Well it's good to know you have something to do besides brood over your loss."

Lon'qu bristled at the small jab ever so slightly, but calmed down with a sigh. It wasn't like he could object anyways so he might as well accept it. Having someone to train has taken his mind off his injured pride as a fighter, and it _was_ somewhat enjoyable, even if he wouldn't admit it.

"Fair enough."

Turning sharply at a snapping sound, the pair saw half of a training dummy fall to the ground. Leaving a silent but obviously nervous Marth to hastily sheath his odd looking sword and leave. But not before muttering a low 'sorry' as he walked away. Basilio stared at the remains of what used to be a training post, before following his current champions lead and also walked out. Rubbing the back of his head, the Khan was barely heard saying something like: "That's the second one this week…" 

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Six

* * *

Darren woke up feeling miserable. His muscles screamed at him to stay put in bed and just sleep the rest of the day. But just like every other day after a sparring session he got up regardless of the pain. To be completely honest the only reason he was even capable of waking up early every morning was because Grima pitied the boy and spared some of the excess energy he had stored due to eating a lot. Even if everything still ached a lot. Unfortunately though today wasn't one those days as he couldn't find the little dragon, so as a result, not only did it seem like it was past noon, but he was also subjected to the aches of muscles while tired.

Still, at least he was able to walk it off after a while. And he was feeling the pain less and less with each day. He was even confident enough in his skills to think that he could possibly –though very unlikely– take on 'Marth' now. Grima highly doubted that, but Darren liked to think that he had even the slightest of chances of going up against Basilio's current champion.

Walking down the halls on his way to the familiar kitchen to collect his and his draconian partners breakfast and eat in his room. It was kind of odd at first that most people didn't give him a second glance when he walked by them with two plates of whatever he could find with more than enough food for one person. But once he saw one or more of the soldiers eating more than that he figured that he shouldn't care.

Stopping at the doorway he found that the room was mostly empty, save for a few of those that worked there.

Curious as to why it seemed like the castle was empty at the moment, he walked out of the room and into one of the many hallways.

'Maybe it's their day off?' He guessed. 'Nah, they'd have replacements or something if that was the case.'

He watched as Raimi exited out a room and walked past him without a word. Darren raised an eyebrow at the gate captain, before heading to the door she left. 'Odd.' He noted. He never talked to her again after she left him at the castle, he'd seen her a few times though, but that was usually late at night, never in the afternoon.

Hearing voices as he approached the door, he opened it and stepped into the room, fully intending to find out what was happening.

"Hey, anybody know what's… going… on…"

* * *

Things were beginning to looking up for the Shepherds as of late. Sure, once they left on their journey to get reinforcements from the neighbouring Feroxi they'd encountered more groups of Risen than usual. But it wasn't something they couldn't handle! So what if the cold in Regna Ferox was barely tolerable and they were somehow mistaken for brigands from Plegia at the entrance to the land. And then were forced to fight the guards.

Well at least we're getting somewhere now, if there wasn't one, small, problem.

"…regrettably. I cannot provide you any Feroxi troops for Ylisse." Flavia informed Chrom.

All that effort…

"What?! Why not?!" Cried out Lissa.

Gone.

"I lack the authority."

Wait, what?

Robin looked at the Khan in confusion, as did all of the other Shepherds that were present. Chrom seemed to be the first to recover from the news.

"Forgive me, but I don't understand. Aren't you the Khan?"

"As I said," Flavia responded, "I am _one_ of the Khans." A clear emphasis on 'one'. She then went on explaining how every few years both the West and East Khan held a tournament. And the winner would hold complete authority of Regna Ferox which clearly meant that they would be able to decide who they made alliances with. And that since the West Khan won the previous tournament…

"…so we are to receive no aid at all?" Chrom finished.

Flavia grinned at the prince. "That doesn't mean you won't get that alliance. The next tournament is soon and I already have a champion for it. And I'm sure he could use some assistance." She mused. At Chrom's confused look followed by a few others she elaborated. "These tournaments are fought by outsiders; otherwise Ferox would be plagued by blood-feuds and plenty of dead Khans. So, I am asking you to assist my current champion in this tournament."

The prince agreed almost instantly. "We will fight in this tournament East Khan. There are too many threats to Ylisse to not do so."

At that moment a door opened, revealing a black haired youth. "Hey, anybody know what's… going… on…" he seemed to go silent as all eyes turned to him as he spoke.

"In fact," she began as she walked towards the newcomer. Wrapping an arm around the boy she turned around to face the Shepherds with a small grin on her face. "Here he is right now."

Scratching his head the boy gave a sheepish smile while introducing himself.

"Name's Darren, I'm uh, Flavia's champion." 

* * *

'Holy crap! They actually came!' Darren thought frantically.

' _Well they did arrive before the tournament started in the game remember? Maybe they're actually on schedule?_ ' Reasoned Grima, who had watched the part of the fight between the Shepherds and the infamous border guards, before coming back to watch everything happen, all from the safety of a chandelier hanging above both parties.

At the moment Darren was leading the Shepherds to where their rooms would be after being assigned to do so by Flavia. There was a few small conversations going around the group, mostly talking about who was going to participate in the coming battle. He couldn't really able to hear many of the details, aside from Vaikes' loud proclamations of being capable of winning the tournament by himself. Which earned him a few groans, but that's obviously never stopped him before.

Entering a familiar hallway Darren turned back towards the Shepherds. "Well, here we are," gesturing to the many doors lining the hall with an arm. "Lunch should be ready in an hour or so in case you were wondering."

"Ah, thank you Darren. I look forward to fighting with you in the tournament." Chrom said.

Darren gave a small chuckle. "Same here, never would have thought I'd be fighting beside a prince before." He remarked with a smile before walking to his own room and entering, leaving the Shepherds to do as they pleased.

"Seems like a nice guy." Lissa quipped from beside her brother. "Maybe he's another fan?" She teased now looking up at Chrom.

"I doubt it Lissa, he seemed a little nervous at first sure, that doesn't make him a 'fan'." Responded the older brother, who was now making his way to one of the various doors in the hallway.

Turning to her retainer, who had remained silent the entire time, she asked for his opinion, even if the answer was somewhat predictable. And did he not fail to deliver.

"I am uncertain of what to make of him, but we should keep an eye on him just in case." Supplied the voice of one Fredrick the Wary.

"Mehh, I'm sure I can take him." Vaike boasted confidently.

Lissa snorted dismissively at the comment. "Sure you can Vaike, just like how you can forget to take your axe to a fight."

"H-hey! That was done on purpose! The Vaike just wanted to just get their hopes up." The blonde warrior denied futilely.

By then the princess had followed the rest of the Shepherds example and left the area in favour of finding something else to do. Maybe find someplace to take bath? Oh! Maybe she could tease Sumia about her attempts to get closer to her dense brother! That was always a fun thing to do. Well, it definitely beat having to talk to Frederick the _Boring_ the entire time.

And so before he knew it Vaike was all by himselfin the hallway. But hadn't noticed until he looked around. "Guess I'll go too, maybe I can get Chrom to fight me again before the tournament starts." Looking at the door the new guy (Darren if he could remember correctly) entered he shrugged, "Or I could make sure this guy has was it takes to fight with the likes of The Vaike in the tournament." Realizing that he's been talking to himself for a while now, Vaike also left the hall. Leaving a walking suit of armor, who had been trying to get someone's attention for the past half-hour, to sigh and walk away. Coincidentally scaring one of the guards who had been walking in the halls.

On the other side of the door, Darren slumped to the ground as he somehow managed to overhear Vaike's talking to himself. Until then he had mostly been running on auto-pilot, and only when he had spoken to Chrom at the end of his little tour, did he slowly begin to come back to reality. He should have been expecting it to happen eventually, but wished it wasn't so sudden. Today he had a break in training because Lon'qu said he had something to do, and since Grima wasn't there that morning he slept in. Turning a hateful eye at the fell-dragon, Darren growled out, "You knew something was up, didn't you?"

Not too far away from the door, lying on the table, the dragon in question returned the look with as much a calm glance as a dragon could give, before looking away and spoke in an indifferent tone. "I had a suspicion that _something_ was happening when most of guards had left."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Came the heated response.

"I wanted to see your reaction." Grima said with a toothy grin.

Darren held the glare for a couple more seconds, before closing his eyes and sighing. "Guess I looked pretty funny didn't I?" The boy mused, a small smile grew on his face at the memory.

"Like a fish out of water." Grima wholeheartedly agreed. They both laughed for a while before quieting down. Darren picked himself up from the floor with a small grunt. Moving to pick up the empty plate that was _supposed_ to be his breakfast, and found it to be seemingly spotless. 'Licked clean?' He thought curiously. Raising a single eyebrow in the direction of the fell-dragon, Grima gave a sheepish chuckle while shrugging his wings. "I was, hungry?" 'Oh well.' Empty dishes in hand he walked to the door.

"I'm going to try and find something to eat," giving another glance to the still nervous dragon. "Then I guess I'll find something else to do for today. Heh, maybe even go against," raising a hand above his head in a fist for dramatic effect, "The Vaike!" He announced.

"Are you _sure_ you can take him?" Grima asked in genuine curiosity. He'd been there to watch every spar since the first time, and was glad to note the familiar patterns of strikes that he begun to make after a few sessions, the tell-tale sign of an attack pattern. Even noticing how he was beginning to read Lon'qu's next strike, much to the myrmidons mixture of ire and pride. But still, he was curious about the decision.

Darren puffed up confidently, crossing his arms over his chest. "Of course I can! I haven't spent this past week doing nothing you know? If I thought I couldn't beat Vaike, then you'd have to forget about me restoring you to your true body."

Giving the dragon small grin, Darren left the room. Now on a search for a battle –and a quick snack possibly– but mostly a battle. Taking to the air Grima flew into the small pouch that was Darren's hood, completely unnoticed by the owner. Both had the same excited glint in their eyes, even though they were both unaware of it. 

* * *

**AN: Again, I'm sorry it took a while to update, I'll try my best to get in another chapter as soon as possi- oh, hey a butterfly.**


	8. Chapter 7

Everything seemed fine at the moment for the prince of Ylisse; they had found the alliance his country so desperately needed, all it took was for him and a few of his fellow Shepherds to win a tournament that takes place in a couple of days. Yup, he was having a great day and it seemed like almost nothing could take him out of his great mood.

"Hey Chrom! How about a fight? We haven't had one in a while!"

Well, he _did_ say almost.

"No Vaike, not now."

"Awhh c'mon, I won't hurt you too much, and besides, Lissa can use her staff on you afterwards." Vaike teased, grinning confidently. 'I got you right where I want ya.'

Chrom almost rised to the bait, fists clenching and jawline hardening. But managed to reign in his irritation with a resigned sigh. He wasn't about to let himself get distracted, he needed to help Robin with planning.

"Sorry Vaike, maybe some other time."

The blonde warrior's brows furrowed as his attempts at goading the prince into a fight were avoided. But soon that grin made its way back into place as he got the ultimate plan.

Folding his arms to his sides, his eyes seemed to bore into Chrom's, whose own eyes seemed to widen in surprise as the unexpected action. Opening his mouth Vaike began his brilliant plan.

And started making chicken noises while flapping his arms together.

"Bugooock Chrom's a chicken buck buck bugoock!"

Chrom for the most part just stood there, not knowing what to do with the current situation happening in front of him. But he could get the strange feeling that he being mocked by an idiot, but it was also embarrassing to look at.

"I… I'll be leaving now." He said quickly, already turned by the time he finished talking, and began walking away.

Seeing his prey running away, Vaike quickly followed. Still acting like a chicken though.

"Buck buck bucAAAWK!" 

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Seven

* * *

It seemed that the Shepherds had seemed to have settled in when Robin walked into the mess hall. They were off on a spare bench brought in to accommodate the sudden guests. Stahl was practically inhaling his food, while Sully was trying to get his attention to talk about how he needed to train harder with her. Miriel had walked off in search of a library. Sumia took her food and also left to take care of her newly acquired pegasus, who had suffered some wounds from the border battle, and Lissa was not too far behind when he had seen them walk by. Chrom was doing his best to avoid a suddenly _eager_ Vaike who had out of nowhere wanted to have one of their battles. Meanwhile Virion was off chasing every maid his eyes found themselves on. And Frederick was glancing suspiciously at everything that could pose a threat to his male charge, clearly not taking the very near death of Chrom very well, as he hadn't left him out of his sight since then. Robin was pretty sure he was missing something… but couldn't figure out who or what. And what was he doing exactly? Well currently he was mulling over who was going to be in the upcoming tournament. He was supposed to do this with Chrom but he looks a little… occupied at the moment.

Being the tactician was harder than it seemed, and a lot more stressful too. Almost twice they had almost lost Sumia in that earlier battle, and it was weighing heavily on him. Only a quick interception of magic and luck saved her from the archer he hadn't seen. There were plenty of other close calls but they were less, panic inducing as that moment was.

Now if only he could get these damn battle layouts finished. Glaring at the roster currently held in his hands, the snow-haired tactician mentally willed it to give him answers, only to receive the obvious response of silence as it was a book. Chrom was an obvious answer since he was the leader, but what about the others? Stahl and Sully had great mobility, but he was worried that the West Khan had armored knights. But in that case Vaike with his hammer and Miriel with her tomes would prove valuable. But Vaike wouldn't be able to handle the more speedy enemies like the Myrmidons they encountered before, and there wouldn't be anything to defend Miriel if she's cought out of position. Lissa and Virion? The same problem. Sumia? He had the vast suspicion that there would be archers present in the fight. It seemed that Frederick would be the best option so far; he just had to hope that there weren't any powerful mages on the other side. And the fact that he knew nothing of their ally in this battle didn't help in the slightest.

"Arghh," he groused, dropping the book onto the table in favour of rubbing his temples. Briefly overcome with a vast feeling of helplessness.

"You okay?" asked a concerned, if not slightly amused voice.

Looking up he watched as Darren sat across from him, placing a rather large helping of food in front of him. The dark haired boy was wearing a strange smile on his face; it looked almost nostalgic, for some reason. Sighing, Robin nodded, "Just trying to figure out whom to send for the tournament."

Darren nodded, closing his eyes in the progress. Remembering how paranoid he was during his first play through at this point in the game, though it was taken as a nod of sympathy to Robin. Deciding to help the tactician, he reached his hand out to take what looked like the Shepherds roster, receiving a startled noise from Robin as he did so. Inside it the familiar look of the roster from the game was there, it was just all, ink though. "Neat drawings," Darren commented, seeing how everything was obviously handmade, absentmindedly beginning to eat his food which was left unattended until now. His observations were cut short as the roster was roughly taken from his hands, the last the he saw was the drawing of Frederick with a small comment next to it in small text saying "jerk".

"What'd you do that for?" said an irritated Darren.

"I should be asking _you_ that!" A flustered Robin replied sharply. There was a reason he didn't show anyone the roster, it was one of the few things he felt embarrassed about. The last person who tried peeking into it was shocked by an 'accidental' Thunder, though, he _did_ warn Vaike not to do so in his defense. Ever since then no one has tried to look into the roster.

"Sheesh, fine I was just trying to help out."

"Huh? Help out?" Robin said dumbly.

"Sure, two minds are better than one right?"

 _'Well three actually but I'll let it slide this time.'_ Grima added, directing the thought to Darren.

Robin narrowed his eyes at the other boy, clearly suspicious of his actions. "And why should I just let you?" He questioned, holding the book closer to himself.

Darren sighed in exasperation. "C'mon don't be like that. You're acting like Mr. Wary over there." He said while jerking his thumb over where Frederick, was at the moment, glaring at a servant who had come to take the plate away. "We're both going for the same thing right? Winning the tournament and all?" Seeing the tactician nod his head he continued. "See? Same side here, so I'd like to help you out since it looks like you weren't getting anywhere by yourself anyways."

Reluctantly, though more so for different reasons than one might expect, Robin handed him the Party Roster. Snatching it quickly Darren began to skim the pages, only taking note of the names and their respective stats. It seemed like everyone was well rounded; with no one in particular being the most advanced, well except for ol' Freddy of course. But that's beside the point. With no one person ahead of everyone else by a large margin meant no one that could deal enough damage for the weaker units to gain experi– _'Gah! This isn't a game anymore you idiot! These are real people!'_ He mentally reminded himself. Noticing something odd with the page he was staring at, he began to get to get Robins' attention.

"Hey, Robin?"

"What?" Robin mumbled, being recently brought out of his thoughts.

Pointing to a page Darren answered: "You're missing someone."

"Eh?" Scrambling to get up, the tactician nearly ran around the table to look at the object in Darrens' hands. Picking up the roster he studied the page, and sure enough, there was someone missing. The unknown persons stats were there, but the areas where their portrait and name should be were blank, leaving an extremely confused Robin to look back into his already confusing memory.

Meanwhile, Darren took the book back into his own hands, and stared at the stats of this unknown character to see if something could jog his memory. He was positive it wasn't him, as he wasn't in the Shepherds group. So who was it? It was clear that this person had high defense, close to rivaling that of the overpowered early game Great Knight.

Grima snickered from within Darrens hood, having already figured out who the mysterious Shepherd was, much to the boy's ire.

Robin however, also heard the silent snickering and looked around in attempt to find the source. Causing Darren to freeze as he saw this, and mentally scream at the miniature dragon to shut up. But let out a barely audible sigh of relief when he saw Robin go deep into thinking.

Somehow the action of hearing something and not finding the cause reminded the amnesiac of a similar event that took place only a few hours ago. An orange suit of armor suddenly appearing in the battlefield, and the owner was actually–

"Kellam!"

"Yes?"

"GYAHH!"

Darren had jumped up from he was seated when the unexpected voice was heard, and was currently trying to calm his heart down to a level where it wasn't trying to hammer itself out of him. Grima was faring better than his partner, but not that much.

Kellam watched guiltily as a slightly paler Darren slowly sat down again. In his defense, he was eating rather peacefully when his name was suddenly called. So he automatically responded to the call.

"At least we know who is now," Robin said with a nervous smile, in attempt to get a response from the boy. "It was Kellam!"

Said person tried to apologize then, but it seemed that his natural talent seemed to take effect at that moment, meaning the disappearance of one giant suit of armor. One really confused Robin. And one especially shaken Darren.

"Oh…" 

* * *

After getting over the next to supernatural event that is Kellam, both Darren and Robin had finished with their planning about an hour and then some later. Well, actually Robin had done most of the planning and tactical stuff, since Darren and Grima had no such experience on the subject beyond their knowledge on the game; Grima, because he never needed it before since he was a dragon, and Darren because there simply was no need to. So they were both subjected to giving whatever advice and hints they could about the upcoming battle; possible enemy types and who among the Shepherds would have the best advantages among other things.

Rising from his seat Robin stuck out his hand towards Darren, a somewhat tired smile on his face.

"Thanks for the help Darren." He said smiling.

Darren scratched the back of his head with one hand while the other reached for the outstretched hand, laughing sheepishly for a moment before responding.

"I was glad to help, even if I didn't do much."

Robin looked like he was going to say something else, but the sounds of rapidly approaching footsteps distracted the tactician.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't get here any sooner Robin," panted a semi-exhausted Chrom. "It's just that Vaike was bothering me for so long and I couldn't get rid of him when–"

"Chrom," Robin cut in, raising his hands in a calming gesture. "It's fine anyways. I got some help from Darren here while you were… preoccupied. So we're already finished with the plans."

Chrom sighed in relief as he realized that nothing had gone wrong because of his inability to attend his meeting with Robin. At least now he could worry about other things like…

"Hey Chrom! Where'd yah run off to?"

Vaike.

The trio watched as the blonde ran by the door, and Chrom once again sighed in relief as he ran past it without noticing him. But that relief rapidly faded when he saw a head peek in from the entrance. The blonde warrior grinned as he walked into the room, heading straight for our distraught prince.

"There you are!" He said happily, then after taking notice of the other people in the room, he added. "Robin? What're you doing here? And… uh…" trailing off as he couldn't remember the third person's name.

"Darren." Said boy replied.

Awkward silence filled the room as no one else spoke after that. But before things could become unbearable, Robin remembered he had been asked a question and was glad to answer it at the moment.

"Well Vaike, Darren and I were just finishing up on our plans for the tournament." Glancing over at Chrom for a moment he then added with a painfully obvious fake smile, "The same plans me and Chrom were supposed to make."

Chrom winced at the hidden venom found in his tactician's voice. "I thought you said it was fine." He reminded.

"And you said you finished it already right?" Vaike helpfully supplied. "That means me and Chrom here can finally get to our fight? I've been tryin' to all day you know?"

Happy to get out of what seemed like a dire situation with his tactician, Chrom whole-heartedly agreed to the fight. Who knows what Robin would do to him if he was unprotected, having somehow lost his wary retainer around the first few minutes of Vaike's chase.

"Sure, I don't see why no–"

Or at least he tried to.

"How about you fight me?" Darren interrupted, stepping into the conversation after being ignored for so long with a grin and a mischievous look in his eyes.

"Huh? Why can't I–"

"Because _you'll_ be busy." Robin also cut in, having seen the look in Darren's eyes and wanted to take part in what was going to take part. Already he had thought of a suitable –yet playful– punishment for his leader's aloofness.

Finally catching on the prince's eyes widened as he fearfully stepped away from the pair. "Busy, with what?" He asked slowly. His fears were only confirmed when Robin, his ever helpful tactician and good friend, slowly grinned at him. That look when he came up with a plan before every battle thus far, clearly visible in his eyes.

"You'll be going over the plan."

Chrom blinked. _"_ That's it?" Well, maybe it wasn't that bad after all. Maybe he was just over thinking it. There's no way Robin would do anything so devious to him.

If anything Robin's grin grew wider at the prince's comment.

"Then you are going to write about anything that could be changed, _then_ you are to inform those who were picked for this mission, and _then_ after you've done all of that. I want you to _personally_ check on our supplies to make sure we have enough vulneraries and that our weapons are in good shape." With each consecutive 'then' Robin took a seemingly menacing step towards Chrom, resulting in another step back for the prince.

"And why do I, um, have to do _any_ of this?" He tried in vain to get out of the situation.

"Because I'm the tactician."

"And if you don't we'll get Freddy to come after you." Darren added with a smirk.

Knowing that there was no possibility of him escaping his fate Chrom sighed resignedly, slouching over in a very un-royal-like manner. "Alright…" He muttered.

Darren and Robin shared a sidelong at each other for a moment, before simultaneously reaching up and high-five'd each other. From there Robin handed Chrom a few papers that were previously inside one of the many pockets in his robe.

"Here you go."

Once Chrom had exited the room Darren turned to his white haired partner in crime, a single eyebrow raised in amusement.

"Didn't you just give him one of the the first drafts?"

"Yup."

The so-called 'first draft' was one of the many early plans Robin had made shortly after Darren arrived. Each draft consisted of one team, their preferred positioning on the battlefield, and the kind of playstyle they were going to use; from aggressive to defensive, or to split up into multiple groups in order to cover more ground, or to move as one and pick more isolated targets. Of course they had already made their final copy by the time Chrom had arrived, having gone through many of the drafts and fixing up the one that was the most promising.

Suffice to say, but Robin works _fast_.

"Heh, well it was a little harsh for my tastes, but nonetheless well played." Darren admitted with a small chuckle.

"Well you were the one who started it in the first place." Robin shot back, before looking at the remaining person who had yet speak since he arrived. "Besides, don't you have a fight to begin?"

Looking at the forgotten member of their group, Darren's face visibly switched from being playful to a more confident look, but still retained a small, playful grin.

"True. How about we get right to it, right Vaike?"

Snapping out of a daze visibly, Vaike looked over the boy, sizing him up. Sniffing, it was clear he did not like what he saw.

"Hopefully you'll put up a fight or at least long enough for me to get a workout." He boasted confidently.

An eyebrow twitched as a nerve was struck. And even as his grin became obviously strained, Darren reached out with a hand.

"Wanna bet?"

A little more interested in the matter, Vaike leaned in a bit.

"How much?"

"Fifty."

"Fifty huh? It's a bet."

And so the two shook hands, never letting their smiles down even as both began laying down pressure on the others hand. Small arcs of lightning even seemed to make an appearance as the two stared off.

Oh yes, it was _on_.

* * *

 **AN:** **I lost it! The most beautiful –and not to mention** ** _very_** **distracting– butterfly I have ever seen in my life! Ahh what a tragedy. Oh well, here's the new chapter.**

 **I actually wanted to add the next scene to this chapter as well, but I'm trying to keep chapter lengths more or less the same. But that doesn't mean I won't try making longer chapters in general, it's just so… hard to. I just find it hard to make good descriptions.**

 **Y'know, I'm actually currently writing a FE one-shot that I recently came up with. It will hopefully reach 10k or more words once I finish, since it would be covering a lot of the storyline, but not enough that there would be nothing left to explore. So if you eventually see it (I say eventually 'cause you should know now how easily I get distracted.) give it a review on how it was; if you liked it, why you didn't, stuff like that. 'Cause I might want to eventually make it its own story alongside TOW later on.**

 **Well anyways, thanks for reading, leave a review if you want, and if anything, I want some criticism on how this story is looking so far. So I can try to explain it or fix said problems in the previous chapters and know what to watch out for in later chapters. So feel free to do so.**


	9. Chapter 8

**AN: Thank you, Antex-The Legendary Zoroark, and farsejojor for the reviews. They were greatly appreciated. And I'll be checking up a few things on my previous chapters, you know; spelling, sentence fixing, maybe add a few more things too. But other than that, there's not much to say here so I'll just let you get on with the story.**

* * *

Grima circled the small arena from above. The little dragon made his escape soon after Darren left to his room to get his weapon, wanting to watch the event from the best spot to not get caught. It also caught his attention that the boy was drawing quite a bit of a crowd; which consisted of the residents of the Ferox castle and some of the Shepherds. The Shepherds were there mainly because they wanted to know how the person who was supposed to help them in the upcoming tournament did in a battle. With the exception of Chrom, who was still busy with paperwork, while most of the Feroxi were just there for a source of entertainment.

 _'You sure you're going to be fine Darren?'_ Grima asked.

 _'Definitely.'_ A voice replied. Even without being able to see him Grima could basically picture the boy saying that with his playful grin.

The dragon sighed, ' _It'd probably be best if you take this a little more seriously you know? I'm not going to be able to help this time around._ '

Back on the ground Darren frowned, dropping his playful attitude as he walked. _'I wouldn't expect you to. Even though we both know you have more than enough to go around, with how much you usually eat.'_ He was pretty sure, possible injuries aside; he'd be able to just wear Vaike out to a point of exhaustion where he just couldn't move anymore. Seemingly an infinite amount of energy is useful.

A nervous chuckle was all he received before his attention was brought back to the ground in front of him. He shivered slightly as a cold breeze blew by. It seemed to be getting colder as of late, not that it had been bothering him that much. It was just getting more, noticeable. He was approaching the arena when he caught sight of his opponent.

Vaike was standing in the center of the small circle arena with his arms crossed. His appearance just seemed to be screaming 'confidence'. When he noticed Darren's arrival he called out. "You ready to lose?"

Darren took a second to look at the blonde warrior, an eyebrow rising as he stared back up at him. After a moment he responded with a grin. "I'm pretty sure we were supposed to fight with weapons you know?"

Vaike stared at the grinning boy blankly, wordlessly reaching his arm behind him to retrieve his axe, only to grasp thin, cold air. Looking back at his hand, and noticing the definite lack of weapon, he frowned.

"Huh.

Meanwhile at the edge of the circle, the members of Shepherds there all sighed. While some guessed the possibility of this happening –Miriel had brought it up– they didn't think it would _actually_ happen. Robin sighed simply out of exasperation, his palm resting on his face.

"Someone _please_ get him an axe?"

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Eight

* * *

While everyone waited for Stahl to find a suitable axe for Vaike –possibly one with a chain link attached to his person so he wouldn't be able to forget it– Robin frowned. He'd been _especially_ interested in the upcoming fight, not for the entertainment it might provide, but to learn about his newest ally. Usually he'd be able to find out the capability of those he encountered within only a few glances, but Darren just came out blank. So it was slightly frustrating to the tactician when the match had been prolonged thanks to Vaike's little misplacement.

Speaking of Vaike, there he was. A little reddened out of embarrassment, and visibly irritated about earlier. Not that Darren was helping, as he was not-so-silently snickering in amusement, which only served to fuel Vaike's growing anger.

Finally having enough of it, the blonde warrior snapped. Pointing an accusing finger at the laughing boy, he growled out: "I don't see your weapon here either." He smirked as he finished, waiting for the boy to get embarrassed so he could fully enjoy the payback. So that's why he was confused when he saw not a flustered Darren, but a rather calm one.

"Don't worry 'bout it." He replied casually, a smile flashing across his face.

 _'You're ego is going to show.'_ Grima commented. It seemed that Darren always enjoyed showing off his new weapon whenever the possibility came. And while it was funny to see the odd looks from those who saw it, he didn't want the boy to get overconfident.

 _'I said don't worry about it.'_

Vaike at this point tried to press on the matter, but was interrupted by the arrival of Stahl. Getting of his horse, Stahl walked towards Vaike, an iron axe in hand. The spectators that were all talking amongst themselves began to quiet down when they saw him bring the axe to its owner.

"So how are we going to do this?" Darren asked as he waited. "I mean, I don't really want to do 'first hit decides it' so what do you suggest? Ring out? Maybe first to submit?"

"The one who can who can force the other to admit defeat is the winner." Robin interjected. "So in other words, first to submit."

"Fine by me." Vaike agreed, getting a better grip on his newly acquired axe.

"Alright! Now let's get this show on the road!" Darren said enthusiastically.

"Are you sure you don't want one of us to get you your weapon?" Robin asked from the sidelines. He looked a little nervous seeing someone going barehanded against Vaike. And while it was more or less a friendly spar accidents are still possible, so he couldn't help but worry.

Darren waved off the concern. "Trust me on this."

Robin still looked unconvinced, but didn't approach it anymore. Looking down the center of the arena he announced loud enough for the two competitors to be able to hear, "On the count of three then." Receiving nods from the both of them he began.

"One."

Vaike tensed, gripping his axe tightly. Darren remained still, watching the axe-user intently.

"Two."

The audience had quieted down into a deathly silence, all eyes trained on the pair.

"Three."

Grima sneezed. It was cold up there.

With a yell Vaike charged, axe raised in an overhead swing. Darren watched the approach calmly, waiting for the right moment. And only when the opportunity revealed itself, with Vaike positioned in front of him, did he make his move. The sound of metal striking metal was heard as Darren raised his arm to the axe in what seemed like a sure way to lose his arm. Vaike's eyes widened as he saw two blades reach out from the metal case on Darren's arm and block his axe.

"What th-"

Taking advantage of Vaike's surprised state, Darren used the curved portion of his Predator blade to hook the handle of the axe and pulled to the right. Suddenly the blonde found himself way off balance, as he stumbled away from his target. While trying to regain his balance he never saw his legs get swept out from under him, naturally meaning he fell down.

As he tried to push himself up he felt the cold feeling of metal on him, figuratively freezing him in his tracks.

"Give up?"

With a grunt he grabbed his fallen axe and lashed out at the space behind him, effectively throwing Darren off. Darren watched Vaike pick himself up from the ground with a curious eye. He was relieved that the match wasn't over just yet so he could see where he stood.

"Not so easily."

Once again he lashed out with his axe, this time moving horizontally. Sparks flew as Darren once again met the attack, but was caught off guard by the amount of power in the strike. Soon Darren felt himself get pushed back as the two weapons continued to press against each other.

"What, was that all you got?" Vaike taunted, confidence building quickly as he pushed the other boy back.

Growling the black haired teen released the grip in his hand, meaning the blades withdrew into their metal case, and quickly ducked under the continued path of the axe. Then tightening his grip once again the blades came out and this time went on the offensive. Leading with an overhead feint and immediately spinning into an attack from the side when he saw the axe move upwards to block the attack. Which lead to double slashes to appear on Vaike's chest, not that they were deep enough to be life threatening, but more of an annoyance to their owner. Something Lon'qu used a _lot_ to get Darren to remember something in training. And something Darren had learned to control his attacks. Besides, with an actual healer nearby instead of those healing salves he used it wasn't even going to be a problem afterwards.

Eventually Vaike found himself covered in multiple gashes, and somewhat exhausted. Darren wasn't let off unscathed either; baring a few marks where he couldn't block in time or was over powered when they locked weapons. And his arms hurt like hell. Vaike swings that axe of his like a monster, and he can't redirect it quick enough to get a hit in. He never really thought he would have a problem with Vaike at all in all honesty, but he still wasn't regretting his decision.

 _'Alright, time to finish this.'_ Even in his mind Darren sounded exhausted.

 _'I'm not giving you any energy after this Darren,'_ Grima informed him through their mental link. ' _It would look too suspicious to those who were watching._ '

Darren sighed internally at that. _'Well, as soon as I'm out of sight, do you mind…?'_ He left the question hanging.

 _'Sure thing, now hurry it up. My wings are freezing up here.'_

Retracting his blades Darren seemed to blur as he ran towards the blonde. Not sure what was going to happen, Vaike prepared himself to block anything that was thrown at him. Once in range of his target, Darren lashed out with his arm, blades extending outwards with the motion. Vaike had expected the initial target to be him, what he _didn't_ expect was the target to be his axe.

' _Gotcha!'_

As the blade fully extended Darren pulled back, the curves catching the blade of the axe, effectively ripping it out of its owners hand, the momentum just enough to carry him forwards. Pain flashed through Vaike as Darren jumped him, pinning him down with his left arm on his neck and right armed raised to strike.

With a thunk the iron axe was a far distance behind Darren, who was already poised to strike if Vaike tried to make a mad dash for it. Realizing just how futile the situation was, Vaike sighed in resignation.

"You win…"

The weight that was previously on him disappeared as Darren lifted himself off the defeated warrior. Picking himself from the ground slowly, Vaike groaned as his muscles protested against the action, pain flaring across various locations on his body. Looking forward he saw that Darren didn't look any better than he felt; the boy's arms looked limp and it was hard to believe that only a few moments ago they were strong enough to pull his axe out of his grasp. Other than that and a few cuts here and there, he looked relatively fine.

A hand reached out in front of him, looking up he saw Darren smiling at him.

"No hard feeling right?"

He stared for a moment, he had to admit though, it _was_ pretty fun and he enjoyed it. With a grin he took the hand and shook it.

"Nah, no hard feelings."

Darren grinned back.

"Now then, let's get you both fixed up." said Robin as he approached the two. Lissa not too far behind him with her staff in hand. As Darren waited for his turn he began talking to Robin.

"So, how did you think of the fight?" He asked.

"It was… interesting." He responded hesitantly, not being able to gather the words necessary to respond better.

Darren arched an eyebrow. "'Interesting' how?"

Robin seemed to struggle a little more with his words, eventually coming out as: "Well, you see-" before being cut-off by Lissa, who had just finished healing Vaike.

"It was so cool how you fought! You were like 'whoosh!', 'slice!', and 'swish!'." She enthusiastically sliced her arm through the air in accordance to each sound effect, all the while holding her healing staff a short distance from Darren.

"A-ah, t-thanks Lissa." Darren stuttered out, unused to the praise after receiving curt comments from Lon'qu during his sessions. Well, that and a cute girl was the one who had given the compliment. The thought itself was enough to make Darren's face redden as he avoided looking at Lissa.

"I wonder what Chrom's doing, he missed out on the fight." Lissa wondered aloud, unaware of the effect she was having on her patient.

Robin eyed Darren with an amused smile. It was fun to watch the normally confident boy act all nervous like that.

"I'm sure he has his reasons."

* * *

"Achoo!"

Frederick popped his head in from the doorway.

"Milord, would you like some tea? It is quite cold here in Regna Ferox."

Chrom looked down at the sheets of paper on his desk in disdain. He had finished reviewing the paper his tactician had handed him and was now busy writing everything that could be changed that he could come up with. And it wasn't easy. He was a Prince godsdamnit! He hadn't learned special tactics like Robin did. And he _still_ had to inform those who were involved!

"Yes Frederick, thank you."

With that the ever faithful –yet extremely wary– retainer of the royals departed. Leaving Chrom to continue with something he would dread to deal with even more so than Risen… paperwork.

"Stupid, paperwork…"

* * *

Soon the odd feeling of being healed by a staff was replaced with a strange tingling sensation, signalling that Lissa was done patching Darren up.

"There you go Darren, it'll be sore for a while, but that's about it." She told him.

"Thanks Lissa." He managed to reply calmly now that he managed to get himself under control.

"No biggie." She responded cheerfully. Soon she ran off to find Sumia again, leaving Robin and Darren behind.

"So… what was that about?" Robin asked curiously.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh really?"

"Positive."

"…"

"… I got nervous okay?" Darren finally relented, crossing his arms and looking away. "I was never good at dealing with girls." Robin hummed as he heard the confession, eyes closed, and arms folded and nodding sympathetically.

"Well, I guess I'll be leaving now. See you soon Robin." Darren said as he began walking away to the East Khan's castle.

"I think she's a little young for you anyways."

Whether Darren had decided to take that moment to slip in the snow, or just simply face-faulted into the ground no one will ever know.

"I-it's not like that!" He yelled, face flushing so much that it seemed the snow was melting just from the contact. Robin chuckled as he walked past the snow covered boy. Today really seemed like a good day.

"Yeah, yeah I get it. Goodbye Darren."

Watching the snow haired tactician walk away, Darren picked himself up, which caused his arms to protest against the action but paid it little attention. Brushing off the snow from his clothes, he grumbled irritably to himself. After he finished cleaning, he quickly noticed that the area was completely devoid of people. They probably left right after the fight finished.

'Hey Grima you can come down now.' He called mentally.

With a swoosh of air the little dragon descended back to earth, immediately perching himself on top of Darren's head and curling up into a ball. Grima was shivering slightly and Darren swore he saw icicles forming on his feathered wings.

"You okay?" He asked aloud, worry beginning to bubble up.

 _'I'll be fine.'_

"Why don't you just heat yourself up?"

 _'It's just a minor discomfort, and I can deal with it, no need to waste precious energy on.'_

Silence hung over them as Darren continued to walk to the castle, the only sound being the crunching of snow beneath his feet.

 _'Do you still want me to…?'_

"Nah, it's only a minor discomfort, and I feel like I want to fall asleep as soon as we get back." He replied. "By the way, you're going to want to hide in my hood soon." Receiving a soft snort in reply he laughed.

From a distance a figure watched the pair quietly. Eyes tracing the body of the tiny dragon, then dropping to the person carrying it. A smile spread through the figure's face as it continued to watch.

"Oh Uncle, I'm glad to see you again."

* * *

 **AN:** Fighting scenes will be the death of me. But I'm kinda proud of this chapter actually; got quite a bit of stuff going. It sucks that inspiration only seems to strike during the dead hours of the night. Which means this is completely written on my IPod instead of my computer, and also why it takes a while for updates. So the tournament will probably take longer to actually write than this one... oh well. As per usual leave a review if you liked what you read, even criticism goes a long way for me (just don't flame too much?".

 **PS:** Do I have anyone reading that can draw pretty well on the computer? Or can use DeviantArt? Because while I'm confident on paper, I can't do anything on a computer. And I already drew something that could probably be used as a thumbnail for this fanfic. So if there is anyone that thinks they can please message me on FFnet? If not then, oh well.


	10. Chapter 9

**Noticed I haven't done one of these in a** ** _long_** **while so…**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem, or any of its characters, locations, or the DLC (*sigh*)**

 **And now onto the chapter!**

* * *

Morning found Darren slumped over in his bed, once again sleeping peacefully. After yesterday he was more than a little tired when he came back to his room. As per usual Grima, despite how much colder it was getting recently, was still able to wake up before him somehow. And so the morning wakeup call went how it usually does: with Grima playfully shooting Darren with a ball of energy.

 ***THUD***

"Ack! Will you _stop_ doing that every time I have to wake up!?" Darren yelled from the floor, as he was forcefully _shot_ off the bed by Grima yet again. The shot itself never really hurt him, it was more the impact he receives when his head lands on the floor. Which really isn't a good thing to wake up to.

Grima snickered from the bed, "Get up earlier then."

Mumbling tiredly, he got up and began getting ready for the day. Pulling on his shirt he shuddered at the cold air, but thankfully it woke him up a bit more than he previously was. He let his mind wander as he began putting on his arm and shoulder braces. If now was when Grima usually 'woke' him up, then his lessons with Lon'qu is probably in an hour or so. His arms were still a little sore from yesterday, so he can't say he was looking forward to it. That is unless Grima was willing to give some energy, maybe he could ask him later. 'Oh yeah,' he thought absently, 'the tournament's toda-'

His eyes widened.

"Oh god! The tournament's today!" 

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Nine

* * *

Darren was growing more nervous as he walked. After their morning meal, Flavia, Darren–and by extension Grima–, a few of those who lived in the castle and the rest of the Shepherds began making their way into Western Ferox where the tournament was being held. Darren was not too far from Flavia, being her champion and all he had to stay somewhat close. Grima was hiding out in his hood in order to get out of the cold. As odd as it was, Darren himself didn't quite feel it. Sure, it was getting a little chilly, but it wasn't that bad that even the normally shirtless Vaike had to put on a coat. Although when he saw Flavia and the rest of the Feroxi natives take the cold in stride, he just chalked it up to one of the features of his revival. Either that or it was just the differences between worlds.

A sneeze from the right brought him out of his wandering thoughts. Glancing over he saw Robin. The poor tactician was pulling his coat tight around him in attempt to keep warm.

Darren chuckled. "Cold?"

Taking his eyes away from the ground Robin scowled at him. While it would have looked quite intimidating under normal circumstances, at the moment it hardly seemed so with the constant shivering and how his teeth chattered when spoke.

"I'm a-actually h-half t-t-tempted to use a f-fire t-tome right n-now."

Darren laughed some more at Robin's misfortune, Grima silently doing the same. Although it seemed like most of the Shepherds would share the same feeling.

"Well, are you all ready for the tournament?" He asked on a different note.

"Y-yeah, w-we are."

"And you _did_ tell Chrom that the actual plans were done already, right?"

Not even bothering with words anymore he just nodded.

Robin had managed to catch Chrom before he began running around to find the other Shepherds and inform them of his draft plan that used to play a prank on the prince. After explaining that it was just a draft and that the actual plan was already finished he got a tired glare from Chrom, who simply walked away silently. He had the feeling that something might happen to him later on, but oh well, he will deal with it when it happens.

"Oh. He wasn't mad right?"

Robin shrugged. He'd be lucky if he didn't have Frederick accusing him of something again.

"Alright then."

The sounds of snow crunching beneath their feet were all that was heard as the two groups walked to West Ferox.

* * *

The coliseum they entered was _huge; j_ ust the living quarters they saw on the way there was bigger than the barracks _and_ the area Darren had his usual spars with Lon'qu, never mind everything else. Flavia and the rest of her Feroxi left to watch the match from their seats, not without giving Darren a few words of encouragement –which in Flavia's case, was accompanied by a friendly slap on the shoulder– and good luck to the Shepherds. Leaving Darren to follow the Ylissean group to where the entrance to the arena was.

Of course he lagged behind them for a little bit at first, giving Grima an opportunity to escape his hood in order to get him to watch the match from somewhere else. Eventually catching up to the group, he went to the one person he really talked to out of everyone there.

"Heya Robin, I see you're doing better now."

Looking over at him, Robin crossed his arms as he continued walking. "No thanks to you, but yes, I'm doing better now." He responded.

Darren mock frowned at the comment. "Well it's not my fault you guys can't deal with the cold." He taunted lightly.

Arriving at a large set of doors –which could probably pass as a gate– where the others were stopping, Robin scowled at the memory. "I can deal with cold," pointing in the direction of the entrance where they entered he continued, " _That_ was not cold."

On the other side of the doors there was the unmistakable sound of people. A lot of people. Simply judging from just how loud it was from the other side of the door you could tell that it was packed. Unfortunately all this speculation made Darren all the more nervous. Fortunately for him however it turned out that he wasn't the only one affected.

"Sure sounds like a lot of people." Stahl stated nervously as he pulled his horse behind him. Yes, the halls were large enough for them to bring their horses with them.

"Don't get cold feet now!" Sully scolded from beside him. "If these guys wanted a show, we'll give 'em a damn show. Remember now, we're doing this for Ylisse. We need this alliance more than anything right now."

As they all waited for the doors to open, their determination to win rose a bit more. Darren shook off his nerves in favour of finding his confidence once again. Good timing too because soon a booming voice could be heard from behind the doors, momentarily overpowering the cheers from the crowds.

"–… **And the challengers would be none other than the West Khan's chosen champions!** "

With a groan the two doors were pulled open, revealing the group to their spectators, opponents and battlefield. Like in the game the arena was surrounded by large walls on all sides. Thankfully the amount of space there was to move around on the ground was plentiful, meaning the decision of bringing their mounted ground units a wise one. But then there were the crowds…

'Pretty sure I'm getting a little dizzy now…' Darren thought as he stumbled slightly. With no one else there to tell him otherwise, he would have guessed that a majority of Regna Ferox was attending the event. The others didn't seem to mind the fact that they were being watched by what seemed like thousands of people. Nor did it seem like their opponents at the other end did either.

 _'Honestly Darren not now. You can deal with stage fright after you win this.'_ Grima admonished. Finding the cause was easy enough; just a simple look into a few memories and there it was. _'Not even Lissa seems bothered with it.'_

It was true. Walking close to Frederick, the groups' only healer seemed to be taking everything in stride.

'She's a princess, she's probably good at dealing with crowds.' Darren reasoned nervously. The cacophony of people seemed to be blending into each other in his ears, eventually becoming one jumbled mess that seemed almost deafening to him.

 _'Look, if you let this get to you there is a very huge possibility you won't make it past this. So please, try to focus on what's in front of you instead of everything else around you.'_ Grima worried for his partner, and feared that nothing good would happen if he were to intervene and was caught by the spectators. Both the people of Ferox and Ylisse didn't take too kindly to Plegia at the moment –well more like they absolutely disliked them, and even _that's_ putting way too lightly– and finding out your newest possible ally just so happens to have said nation's 'God' wouldn't look so good for him.

'Okay… deep breaths.' Breathing deeply as he walked, Darren tried his conventional way towards calming himself. Slowly things began to clear out; the mixture of sounds that were blended together seemed to fade into the background. Just in time to watch a familiar confrontation take place.

"Chrom! Look!" Lissa exclaimed.

"I see him."

It went like how it originally did in the game, with Chrom trying to talk to 'Marth' again, only to see that it wasn't going to happen. So instead they 'let their blades do the talking'. With a timely announcement of " **FIGHT!** " from the loud voice from before, the two withdrew their swords and began their fight.

It was quite a thing to watch actually. The way the two Falchions lashed out at each other, with sparks flying each time they made contact. If it wasn't for the situation everyone was in, it could have easily been seen as a choreographed fight with how the attacks seemed to flow into each other. Of course, that illusion was thrown off a bit when Chrom noticed that his masked opponent used an eerily similar fighting style to his own, but proved his flexibility by quickly adjusting to it.

'I can't believe I have to fight that…' Darren thought numbly as he watched 'Marth' preform the gravity-defying blade spin on Chrom.

 _'Your only advantage would be to hope that you weren't here in the future-past and she doesn't know who you are, that way you're an unknown factor to her.'_ Grima supplied helpfully. Once again he was watching from from above, having slipped past the guards outside to make his way to the opening in the top of the large arena.

'Y'know, somehow, I doubt that.' Darren responded dully.

Suddenly a voice shouted to him.

"Darren! Watch out!"

His eyes snapped to the sight of a giant cracking ball of electricity heading towards him. Instinct taking over him for a second, he rolled out of the way as it passed over his head. Quickly getting back up he looked in the direction of where the warning came from. He found Robin launching his own ball of lightning towards the enemy mage that had attacked him while his attention was elsewhere.

It seemed like with that exchange the entire battlefield came to life; with everyone else that wasn't Chrom and Marth drawing out their various swords, axes, spears and tomes. Speaking of their prince, Chrom had quickly run back to his group soon after he noticed some of the enemies making their way to him.

And judging by the confused expression on his face as he returned, he probably had even more questions coming out of the fight than he did at the beginning of it.

"That was… odd." He muttered before dodging out of the way of another bolt of lightning from a second mage.

"Alright everyone," Robin's voice called out to them, "remember the plan." 

* * *

Grima watched the battle go on with interest. Every now and then he warned Darren whenever he was being shot at by an increasingly annoying thunder mage. After not seeing the first shot fired, which nearly resulted in Darren taking the blow head on if it weren't for the help of Robin, Grima swore he would keep a more watchful eye over the boy.

 _'Behind you.'_

Leaping out of the way of yet another ball of electricity Darren scowled. 'The range on these guys…' he fumed. He soon found out early in the battle that being on the receiving end of ranged attacks was extremely different from within the game, but that was something that should have been expected. What he _didn't_ expect however, was that they could take a shot at him –or anyone for that matter–from basically _half_ of the battlefield away. And it didn't help that there were usually people blocking his path to them. If that was how far it went for normal spells, he dreaded to think of the distance a Mire tome could cross.

Unable to resist a little teasing, Grima laughed _, 'Once you learn to shoot like I do you'll be saying how amazing it is.'_

'But I'm nowhere near being able to do that aren't I?'

 _'Well, no.'_

'Well until then, ranged attacks are annoying.'

Silence informed Grima that Darren was once again focusing on the task at hand, which in this case was fighting. The overall battle seemed to be going in favour of the Shepherds and their extra. Taking advantage of their mobility, the horse-mounted units did their best to pick off any isolated opponents, and never stayed in one spot for too long. Darren and Chrom went for those that have already taken damage from the attacks of Sully and Stahl, the pair covering each other's backs as they fought. Robin dealt with the more difficult enemies, such as the ranged and heavily armoured ones that the others were having trouble with. Lissa was guarded by Frederick, being both the princess and their only healer; she tended to stay in the back. Of course Frederick also attacked of course, and much like his digital counterpart, he was a monster on the field; essentially leaving no survivors. Of course you weren't supposed to kill in this tournament, but with the way Frederick attacked Grima could almost swear that the man was out for blood. The dragon shivered as he thought this, though it didn't make that much of a difference with how much of it he was already doing. Stupid cold.

Turning his attention back to the ground he saw as Darren took on an axe wielder, and soon effectively disarming him in a similar manner that he did to Vaike. After watching Chrom also deal with one, Grima's eyes looked over to the rest of Marths group.

Or rather, Lucinas group.

That's why he was stunned when he saw the direction the masked princess was looking at.

It wasn't on the battlefield. Nor was it even level with the ground. No…

She was looking right at him. 

* * *

_'Darren,'_ Grima said suddenly through their mental link, the tone of voice he used made Darren pause in his advance. Confident that there wasn't much danger of being attacked at the moment, since the rest of the remaining enemy's attention was focused on the deadly duo of Stahl and Sully, he looked skyward to find the dragon. Seeing a tiny black dot high up in the otherwise bright sky after a few seconds of searching made him worry slightly for Grima's cover.

'What's up?' He asked curiously. There was also the thought that he hadn't heard Grima sound like that before at all. And even as half a second past by since he asked, a feeling of dread began to grow.

 _'Lucina's looking at me.'_

Darren stood still as he processed the words for a few seconds. His mind coming up with possibility after possibility of what this could mean. Finally after coming up with the best response he could come up with at the moment, he asked: 'Does she look happy to see you or does she look mad?'

 _'…_

 _'She's wearing a mask you idiot!'_ Grima roared inside his mind, involuntarily making him raise his hand to his ear to block out the sound as he cringed noticeably. ' _This isn't the moment to act like a fool Darren._ ' He calmly added afterwards.

'Well what do I do then?' Darren asked.

A sigh. _'I guess now's as good a time as any to test out if we were in the future-past.'_ Grima said reluctantly. _'Go and fight her.'_

"Darren? Are you all right?" A voice asked worriedly. Ending the mental call Darren jumped slightly and whirled to where he thought the voice came from. His eyes quickly settled on the forms of Lissa and Frederick, both of which were riding on the latter's horse.

"I-I'm fine Lissa," he said in attempt to act like he didn't just get scared by the sudden arrival of the two. "Why?"

"Well, you were just standing there. I thought you might've been hurt or something." She responded. Frederick had simply remained silent. It was unnerving with how he stared at him, obviously studying him for whatever reason. And after watching just how easily the Great Knight was able to take down his foes, Darren didn't want to get even _close_ to his bad side. Fell-Dragon on his side or not.

Aside from a few cuts here and there, none of them deep enough for it to be dangerous, and a scorch mark on his clothing attire from when a ball of lightning got _way_ too close for comfort, he was relatively fine and dandy.

"I'm fine, thanks Lissa."

"If you aren't hurt then what were you doing?"

"I was…" he hesitated slightly, "thinking."

Growing curious, the princess asked a simple, "About what?" It seemed to slip both of their minds that a battlefield _really_ isn't the place for having conversations, something that Frederick immediately thought, but didn't voice. But this was the world of Fire Emblem, so conversations like this would probably take place sooner or later, perhaps in even worse conditions.

"W-well uh… I was thinking about… whether or not to take on the main West Ferox champion by myself."

"Marth?! By yourself?!

"Yeah, I mean, it's only fitting that I do right?" Quickly building up his confidence in the reasoning, Darren continued. "Both of us are the main champions for the two sides. And I'm pretty sure that if you guys didn't arrive when you did, we would have ended up facing each other here anyways."

"But you saw how he fought against Chrom!" Lissa pressed. "And I know you've been putting up good fights lately, but I don't think that's a good idea."

Finally speaking up, Frederick agreed. "Milady is right Darren, it wouldn't be wise to challenge him without any aid. I would try to assist you, but that would put milady in danger."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sully take down that annoying thunder mage, and knew he was running out of time to get his one-on-one, and possibly the answers that could come along with it. "Look, I'll go after him now and you guys can go get Robin or Chrom to back me up when they finish everyone else off. By then either I would have beaten him by myself, or worn him out enough that you guys wouldn't have any trouble taking him out. Got it?"

Seeing them both nod, although they still seemed doubtful, he ran off. He quickly ran past Chrom and Robin as the two were fighting both a Knight and the last Fighter on the field, the two of them throwing him a surprised look as they saw him, before they were forced to continue fighting due to the attacks of the other pair.

'Grima, if you don't mind, I'd like a boost before I do this,' he politely asked. And though he didn't hear a response, he could almost feel the amusement coming from the other side of the link. Immediately after that something that could only be described as an adrenaline rush flowed through his body, arms and legs forgetting their previous aches and injuries. Afterwards he felt just like he did before the tournament began; well rested, nervous and the smallest ounce of excitement.

'Thank you.'

He came to a stop. Across from him was the only person who could give him any answers, no matter how pointless they really were. 'His' face was covered by a mask, so looking for any changes in facial expressions was pointless, and if he were to judge by the last time and his knowledge, asking any questions was too. So his only hope was to find out through the one thing that he had learned since coming to this world: combat.

Lifting his arm up, he pointed at the masked swordsman in front of him, his blades coming out in the middle of the gesture.

"Let's get this show on the road."

* * *

 **AN: _Finally_ got it done. This chapter seriously shouldn't have been this hard to write, but it was. Now originally the whole tournament (and then some) was supposed to take up this chapter, but that idea was so quickly demolished once I saw how much it took to get this down. So I extended the previous work and decided to have the fight and what I have planned afterwards. And I wanted to do a Birthday special and upload two chapters at once, but as you can see from when I upload this... that didn't work out. But as compensation for that, I will upload the other chapter quicker than usual.. I hope.**

 **So as per usual, if you've enjoyed the series so far, follow and favourite it. And if you enjoyed the chapter feel free to leave a review.**


	11. Chapter 10

No words were exchanged between each other as the two champions of West and East Ferox fought. Blades danced around as they tried piercing around an unseen defense, occasionally interlocking and causing overheated sparks to fly at the contact. Aside from the clanging of metal against a divine blade and the fights off to the side –which were mostly ignored in favour of watching what seemed like the main event– the roar of the crowd of warriors was almost deafening. Whenever one of their sides' champion seemed to gain the upper hand in the fight, their respective audience's cheers would raise in volume, and would switch over to the other side as their fighter had the other hand. This repeated throughout a majority of the fight.

Which had only begun a minute ago.

Hastily blocking a blow Darren tried throwing his opponent off balance to land a strike, but the masked swordsman wasn't about to let that happen and quickly righted himself before blocking, much to Darren's ire. Quickly taking advantage of the momentary gap in his defense, Marth went on a full on offense. Never having a chance to counter, Darren was hard-pressed to simply block. A few obviously made it through his defences judging by the sharp pains coming from both his abdomen and left arm. It didn't help that Marth was purposely attacking his left side, taking advantage of the fact that Darren had no weapon on that arm to block or redirect any strikes aimed there.

Trying to get some distance between the two, Darren feinted –which was a risky move since he didn't know if Marth would buy it. But the moment he saw the swordsman shift to block he did his best to leap back to acquire some much needed breathing room.

In the time that it took 'Marth' to charge once more into the fight, Darren summarized how the fight was working out for him in one sentence.

'This isn't looking so good.'

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Ten

* * *

Up in the stands someone fumed silently. His dark brown hair shifting slightly as the cold winds of Ferox made their way through the open roof of the coliseum. While he didn't say anything however, his expression was certainly an open book.

"You don't seem to be enjoying this Lon'qu."

Unable to refrain from doing so, he glared at Basilio. "I'm not."

He had expected to watch some stranger that East Khan Flavia had found at last minute or some random mercenaries that were recruited. Not the person he had spent the better part of this week training going up against the one thing he disliked –currently–almost as much as his fear of women. Though, he felt the small feeling of pride at seeing his only apprentice doing so well against someone he begrudgingly knew was a good fighter, even if it was clear to anyone with an experienced eye that he was quickly losing the lead.

"Well it does explain why Flavia wanted you to train the boy." Basilio said wistfully. The two turned their attention towards another fight that was going on. It seemed that a pair from the East Khan's side was having a bit of trouble dealing with the remaining of their forces. The one with the Lightning tome wasn't able to launch his spell at the armoured Knight because he kept on getting interrupted by Knight's partnered axe-man. And he couldn't distance himself to get a proper shot in or he would leave own partner in the very disadvantageous situation of a two on one fight, so he was forced to stay close. And while dealing with an axe-man would normally be simple for the blue-haired swordsman, it gets a _little_ bit tougher when you have a walking pile of metal blocking your swing. A short distance away the two cavalry units the group had was by their healer. Earlier the two had sustained quite a bit of damage when they were running around the battlefield.

"Looks like we're not winning this one," The Khan concluded. He didn't like to admit it, but he wasn't going to delude himself into thinking Marth could take them all on. It looked like Flavia would be taking the position of head Khan this time. "Guess that means there's going to be a party after this."

Lon'qu snorted. He felt like he was going to have a talk with his apprentice after the tournament was over.

* * *

Robin felt extremely annoyed with how the current events had played out recently.

Instead of someone who was _supposed_ to help out Chrom against the pair in front of them while he was to attack from afar, _he_ was there instead. Apparently Darren had the smart idea to go after the last person by himself. And he could tell by the small glances he had seen when not blocking or dodging an attack that could prove fatal; he wasn't holding up well and probably couldn't last long. It was clear that him and Chrom weren't going to get there anytime soon without some serious help. If they both ran off to help their losing ally, it would leave the duo free access to pursuing the still healing Stahl and Sully, Lissa and Frederick. While Robin thought that the Great Knight would easily be able to take them on, there was always the possibility of danger and he just didn't want to risk it.

'But we've got to help him out soon,' the snow-haired tactician thought angrily. Once again his bronze sword hit the heavy shield of the knight, having long ago switched out his tome for the blade when he saw how futile it was to use the former weapon. He noticed that Chrom wasn't having an easier time against the heavily armoured unit, and instantly regretted not letting the prince take his rapier. Well, in his defence, he thought it would have been easier to just use his tome on the more difficult enemies. That and there was supposed to be someone in his position while he helped from afar.

"I guess he'll just have to hold out for a while longer before we can get to him." Robin concluded. Now if only Lissa could hurry it up with that healing…

* * *

Watching the fight proceed, Grima could see how much the boy was struggling. And it didn't help that he was mostly on the defensive now instead of attacking, and any counters he had set up were easily read.

Not to mention Darren was tiring out quickly.

Each time he had to defend meant more strain was placed on his arm. Injuries were apparent on multiple places on his body, both old and new. Meanwhile 'Marth' was left off with only a few scratches from the beginning of the fight. Now Grima wasn't sure if possible outside of the game, but if that sword was able to heal like it did, then things could possibly get harder than it already was. Thankfully he kept that fact to himself.

'Does the fact I'm getting my rear handed to me mean she knows how to fight against me?' Darren muttered to the dragon. So focused on the fight he wasn't able to study how the masked warrior fought.

 _'Either that or she was able to study you earlier while you were fighting.'_ Grima admitted. He slightly regretted not watching the time travelling future princess of Ylisse when he had the chance to.

'And why would she do that?'

 _'Because you're the odd one here,'_ he informed Darren calmly. _'The unknown factor, and using a strange weapon. I'd actually be surprised if Lucina_ didn't _watch how you fought. You're using a Predator weapon of all things in this world.'_

'Well you gave it to me!' was the indignant response.

Grima snorted, clearly amused. _'And do you regret it?'_

Receiving no answer informed the fell-dragon that Darren was either once again focussing on the fight, or giving a silent yes that would have otherwise lead to more teasing if voiced. A wise choice. Both of them actually. Movement from the Shepherd side of the field caught his attention. It would seem that Lissa had finished healing the previously injured Sully and Stahl as the two quickly rode to their prince and tactician. Better late than never he guessed.

It appears that Robin had also noticed the approaching allies.

* * *

Upon hearing the sounds of hooves Robin risked a glance in its direction to confirm his suspicions, and was glad to see both Sully and Stahl.

"Hold them off for a second Chrom." Robin told the prince as he was suddenly out of the fight, leaving Chrom by himself.

"R-Robin?" Was all the blue-haired prince was able to say before he found himself in a bad situation. Placing the Falchion in between an axe and his arm Chrom desperately backed off from the two attackers.

Finally at a safe enough distance to not be interrupted, Robin pulled out his Thunder tome, aiming at his original target, the bolt of lightning cut through the air, striking the unsuspecting Knight in the side. The tactician had to give some respect when he saw the armoured unit continue standing, albeit _much_ slower than before. Knowing that his help was needed somewhere else at that moment, he began running to a friend in need of assistance, giving the horse mounted Shepherds a nod as they went to help their prince clean up the remaining enemies.

It was about time to wrap things up.

* * *

Deflecting another attack that was meant for him, Darren was seriously considering having another energy boost from Grima. But if he were to guess right, the results of the fight would be the same. Not only that, he also noticed the very plausible possibility of killing himself through excessive bleeding if he were to keep fighting like this. Sure he didn't feel them that much, but the wounds were still there, unchecked and as dangerous as ever.

'I think I'll have to stop soon.' He concluded, reopening the mental link between himself and the dragon watching from above.

 _'Hold on for a few seconds.'_ Was all he heard.

'Hold on? What do you mea-'

"Darren!" called out another voice. Once again he felt compelled to duck as energy sparked in the air, and quickly followed through on it. As the ball passed by overhead Darren glanced over to where his saviour stood only a few feet away. How did he not notice that before? Oh right, trying not to get stabbed or sliced by Lucina, that's why.

"Oh thank gods Robin you're here." Darren said breathlessly as he collapsed onto his hands and knees, suddenly feeling like his legs had just turned into jelly right then and there. 'Huh, convenient timing is convenient.' Robin rushed over to his fallen comrade, keeping an eye on Marth as he did so. The swordsman had managed to dodge the ball of electricity in time, but hadn't moved since.

Spotting several injuries on the boy told the tactician that getting him to Lissa quickly was the best course of action. But with Marth so close by it would be dangerous to attempt to carry him over to the cleric. So he was glad that only a few seconds after a stare down with Marth he heard multiple footsteps approaching. Forgoing caution for that moment Robin lifted the downed Darren by his arms and proceeded to drag him to safety. Darren groaned in pain as he felt his injuries flaring up at the action.

Depositing the injured teen behind the defensive line that is the Shepherds, Robin looked at Lissa. "You know what to do." Nodding wordlessly the cleric began working once again, leaving the tactician to take a quick recap of the battle.

Thankfully there were very little problems that had come along, besides the most recent events. Frederick and Lissa were perhaps in the best condition, but the others weren't that far behind. Obviously they didn't make it completely unscathed –especially in the case of their other mounted units– but it wasn't something that couldn't be healed, and now with only one remaining opponent victory seemed assured.

Only a few seconds after his own recap, Robin looked to see the rest of the Shepherds advance onto the last member of the West Khans chosen group with their weapons drawn and ready to strike.

Well they would've if that person that they were going to attack hadn't spoken up.

"I surrender." Marth sheathed his Falchion-looking-sword and began walking towards the exit. All the Shepherds –both the ones on the floor and the ones watching from the stands– blinked in surprise. And oddly enough, they felt somewhat disappointed; like they expected something else to happen. It appeared that it didn't seem to bother most of the Feroxi people at all, as they broke into cheers.

' _Well that was anti-climactic,'_ Grima concluded.

Sitting up, Darren's head began throbbing at both the action and the noise that surrounded him, which earned him Lissa scolding him and telling him to lie back down. 'That was the most intense moment of my life.' he shot back.

And so the tournament came to a close.

* * *

It didn't take long for Flavia to congratulate those who fought in the tournament. With the alliance between Regna Ferox and Ylisse secured, the Shepherds' plan was to return to Ylisse as soon as possible. Flavia then asked them to stay for at least one more day since there was going to be a party. They reluctantly agreed.

Darren was moved to a room so he could rest from his most recent fight. Though since all his wounds were patched up already there was no danger of having an energy boost, but he was really tired from the fight and felt like wanting to sleep. He wasn't one for parties anyways. Grima –like always– somehow managed to sneak into his room and was sleeping next to him. Thankfully in a position away from sight when someone just enters the room.

The sounds of singing reverberated through the halls, whether or not it was from those who had been drinking no one knew. All Darren knew was that it was somehow loud enough to wake him up. Still a little sore from the tournament he groaned as he sat up. From how dark it was out the window he could guess that it was late. How late exactly? He couldn't tell. They began their walk here close to the afternoon, and the tournament itself was a blur. It could have been hours or just a few minutes for all he cared.

"Damn, my natural stamina must suck for me to have been _that_ tired to sleep 'till now." He groused to himself.

Overhearing his partner, Grima awoke from his nap. Chuckling at the words, the dragon decided to reassure the boy. "Don't be so hard on yourself Darren, you've only been asleep for a few hours. The only reason it's so dark already is because winter's coming." Well there were probably better things to say than that, but for some reason that felt better to say.

Getting up Darren acknowledged the words with a hum, his stomach however reminded him that he hadn't eaten since breakfast with a growl, demanding to be fed. Deciding that now is a better time than never to eat; he went to the door to find some food.

So when he saw Marth standing outside his room he was shocked.

"We need to talk."

* * *

 **AN: Whenever I say I'll release a new chapter soon someone please,** ** _please_** **digitally slap me in the face or something. I swear, I think the last chapter really took it out of me. And after getting some nice reviews too! Gaaaaah sorry to those who've enjoyed this series and was waiting for a chapter to come out. Unfortunately I couldn't get much written into the chapter anyways; I want my chapters to be at least 3k words, but I sometimes just can't find ways to write that much, so I'm sorry for that.**

 **I'd usually say 'as per usual, if you've enjoyed this Fanfic feel free to favourite and follow, and if you liked the chapter leave a review…' but I kinda feel like a jerk for not updating… so I won't** **_*not so subtly winking at the reader*_** **.**

 **I guess I'll see you next chapter then.**


	12. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem, if I did, I would give myself an early copy of Fates. All of them. It doesn't even have to be english dubbed really, I'm fine with the original voice actors going along with english subs.**

* * *

"We need to talk." Those four words might as well have been liquid nitrogen because Darren froze instantly at hearing them, both mentally and physically. Here he was about to go get some food –and possibly a drink, maybe for Grima if he felt charitable enough– since he hadn't eaten since that morning, and somehow ended up being face-to-face with the person who he'd just fought earlier that day.

It didn't help that he still didn't know what to think of 'Marth'/Lucina; whether she's an enemy or an ally. And his weapon was still by the bed where Grima was, not that it would make much of a difference, judging from his previous fight with her, but he had found out that it was just reassuring to have a weapon with you. Running wasn't an option since she was blocking the door and going through the window _probably_ wasn't the smartest –or safest– idea. So he decided to take the only approach that he can.

"O-okay." So he let her in.

The masked princess calmly walked into the room, the door closing silently behind her. She glanced at the bed where –oddly enough– Grima _still_ was, but either didn't see him or just didn't show any sign that she cared. Meanwhile, the dragon himself was just a tense coil; watching for any sign of hostile movement towards either him or Darren so he could take action. A quick blast to the head would probably knock her unconscious, or at least stun her long enough to escape. He didn't want to kill Lucina, for obvious reasons, but he wasn't going to risk any harm done to them.

Stopping a short distance away from Darren, 'Marth' took in a deep breath to calm himself down, before suddenly asking a question the dark haired youth didn't expect.

"What is your purpose here?"

Taken aback by the sudden question, he answered without thinking, "To restore Grima back to his original body." And then proceeded to slap his hand onto his mouth and started to berate himself for being an idiot.

Ignoring his actions, 'Marth' nodded at the answer and seemed to think for a moment before continuing. Hesitating a little at first, the masked swordswoman reached up, and slowly took off the butterfly mask that hid her identity, all the while asking in a wavering voice that Darren had never expected coming from the normally strong willed princess. Her hair, previously kept in place by the mask she wore, fell down now that it was unrestricted as she stared at him with no small amount of uncertainty in her eyes.

"And, who am I?"

A feeling told him that it would be better for him if he just went with the truth. And he already just admitted that he was working with Grima, so why not right?

"…Lucina, future daughter of Chrom and the future princess of Ylisse." He said all the while avoiding those blue eyes that appeared to be holding so much emotion in them.

And so he really wasn't prepared when he suddenly found himself being hugged with intensity so strong that it made his ribs protest under the strain.

"Oh uncle it really is you!"

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Eleven

* * *

Darren remained unmoving as he ate, with the exception of how mechanical his arms moved when they reached for his food. He could guess that it was really early in the morning since there was no one around. With what happened last night he just couldn't get any sleep, not that this was the first time he's stayed awake this long.

Grima had also been confused after that, and simply decided to put it off until he woke up. Meanwhile throughout the night Darren had been thinking. Well that and simply staring off into space while his mind desperately tried to process earlier events.

- **flashback begins** -

 _As Darren's mind tried desperately to collect itself after being thrown like a curve ball, into a wall, Grima gaped at the crying girl that he only knew through memories not of his own. Seeing Darren still frozen he decided to take pity on the girl._

 _Flying over to the pair he landed Darren's shoulder and smacked him lightly with a wing. '_ Comfort the young one you idiot. _' The dragon chided through their mental link._

 _Snapping back to reality, Darren hesitated as he looked down at the person currently trying to burrow herself into his torso and nodded nervously. So with shaking hands he awkwardly returned the hug, patting her back in what he hoped was a comforting gesture._

 _It took a few minutes for Lucina to calm down enough to pull away, but when she did her eyes were beginning to look a little puffy due to the amount she cried. When it became clear that the two humans were feeling rather awkward and couldn't say anything, it was a relief when Grima coughed to catch the two's attention._

 _"I believed that you still want to talk young one?"_

 _Grima barely had enough time to squawk before he was suddenly snatched off of Darren's shoulder at a speed he couldn't see and then enveloped in a possibly life-endangering hug due to his small size. When he noticed her trembling the fell dragon began to worry that Lucina was about to break down again, but sighed inwardly in relief when she caught herself._

 _Darren chuckled at the sight of Grima getting crushed by Lucina, especially since it was in a way that would shock quite a few people._

 _After the ice had been broken Lucina then told the pair a very brief summary of what's happened before arriving at a certain forest not too long ago. Not that Darren minded the skimming through it; since he already had the gist of the situation there. Then she got to when she arrived in Regna Ferox. And despite already knowing that she beat Lon'qu, when she explained –admittedly with a bit of colour on her cheeks– the main reason behind his loss, Darren and Grima had nearly howled with laughter. But throughout her explanation Grima noticed that the princess before them didn't appear to have the same grim determination that he knew from the one in the game, there was still some noticeable, but she seems more… alive?_

 _When she got to the part about why she went to Darren however, was when he interrupted._

 _"I told you to find me?!"_

 _"Yes uncle," Lucina responded calmly. "you –er–_ he _asked me to find you if I wasn't able to contact the rest of the future children. He said Ferox would be the most likely place to find you."_

 _"B-but wouldn't meeting or telling me all of this do something to the timeline?!" Only now did he remember one of the many dangers of time travel._

 _Apparently Lucina was told by future Darren that it would be completely fine to meet and tell present Darren about the future, as long as it was very vague. It was explained to her that the past him would already know quite a lot of what happens in the future, so there was no danger as long as she didn't go into details. She didn't know how that was even possible, but trusted her uncle too much to doubt him on that._

 _With Darren pacified about the possibility of endangering the timeline, Grima decided to broach a topic he had noticed earlier, namely with how she's acting._

 _"Well," Lucina began hesitantly as she sat down on the edge of the bed while Darren remained standing, "ever since father didn't return, and uncle Robin went missing shortly afterwards, you, mother, and Grima did your best to take care of me. And whenever mother was busy you would always take me outside to play or practice with my sword." She laughed silently at a memory, but the sound was a sad one. "But when mother was also lost, you two were all I had left. You two were all we had left." She said remembering the other children of the Shepherds who had lost their parents._

 _In essence they were the rock for many of the people she knew, including herself, and the ones they had to look up to when there was no one left. The two of them tried their best to shield the rest from the worst of it all. And when they had to leave, her Darren and Grima decided to stay behind to provide the last line of defence for them to escape._

 _Watching as her shoulders trembled, Darren once again found himself comforting the princess of a fallen world._

- **flashback ends** -

It had taken a while for Lucina to once again regain control of herself, but with a quick hug and a goodbye she left, once again wearing her mask, leaving the two behind with quite a lot to chew on. Needless to say Darren didn't get to eat for the rest of that night.

He had been here before. He had been in the future-past timeline. The mere thought itself brought up conflicting feelings within him. Knowing that he's played a part in this worlds' history –weird timeline and all that– made him feel excited, giddy even. He was glad that he wasn't just a random stranger that had just popped out of nowhere. But any positive feelings he had vanished at an afterthought, since he knew the reason why Lucina and the other future children had to go back in the first was, and what that meant to him.

It meant that he failed his objective.

 _'Get any more depressed and I'll smack you upside the head again,'_ an interrupting voice admonished within his mind. ' _Be grateful that you were at least still alive when they had to go back.'_

Generally used to having more than one voice in his head –while still retaining his sanity thankfully– Darren sighed.

'It's just, too much to take in at once, y'know?'

' _That's an understatement,_ ' Grima dead panned. _'But I guess it would be for a lot of people._ ' He added as an afterthought. ' _Look, why don't you go find something to do that'll take your mind off this. Maybe you can go get some early practice before Lon'qu shows up, or get some sleep okay?_ '

Agreeing to the first idea Darren went to his room to get ready, then set off to the training grounds nearby.

* * *

Lon'qu had to admit, he was impressed when he saw his student already going through the forms they had worked on by the time he arrived. The cleric that he saw yesterday must have done a better job than he'd expected. It seemed almost as if he _hadn't_ been run to the point of collapsing yesterday.

Well, at least now he wouldn't feel guilty for doing the same. It would serve as good practice for the student.

All Darren heard as a warning was a single crunch of snow and the sound of metal cutting through air before he hastily raised his arm to block the unexpected attack. The moment he saw the Chon'Sin(ese? ian?) blade that unmistakably belongs to a Killer Edge, he figured that Lon'qu had arrived. He was quite surprised really; he was so focused that he was sure he lost track of time. It seemed as if he just started a minute ago.

Throwing off the attacking blade, Darren risked a quick glance at his teacher as he attempted to increase the distance between the two, and saw something that definitely threw him for a loop.

Now Lon'qu was normally neutral about most things, and kept his face the same way. In fact, the frown that Lon'qu usually has is what Darren actually considers as his 'neutral' expression. When his eyebrows start twitching, such as when he was coming up with the various forms for Darren's 'unique' weapon, or when said student started complaining about _certain_ methods of teaching, it showed that he was starting to get irritated. The only other emotion Darren was able to bring out of his stone-faced teacher was the barest hint of a smile (if you can call the corners of his mouth twitching so slightly that you needed Grima to tell you a smile). Darren planned on making more notes on things like this about his teacher, so they could be sold to any future suitors willing to pay a little for a possible guide to Lon'qu's heart.

Anyways, a little off topic. Back to the fight, Darren blanched at the full-on scowl that myrmidon was wearing, and soon paid for the mistake in the form of three new cuts spread over his arm and torso.

 _'Lon'qu doesn't look too happy._ ' Grima remarked from the stands.

'Ya think!'

About an hour later found Darren dropping to the ground out of exhaustion for the second time in a 24-hour time span.

He had come to the conclusion that Lon'qu was not in a good mood. He didn't know why, but it fairly obvious. Thankfully however, the intense sparring had completely taken his mind away from earlier events.

After dragging himself into a sitting position, he looked up to find the myrmidon seated on the stands, sharpening his blade with great care. Noticing that he was no longer recovering, Lon'qu tossed a familiar looking bottle down.

Catching the bottle more out of reflex than anything Darren set to applying the salve to his newest wounds, and immediately remembered why he would always prefer healing with a staff than the burning liquid that he held.

"When were you going to tell me you were Flavia's champion?"

Pausing mid-dab Darren looked upwards once again to the eyes of his teacher, looking genuinely confused. The two never talked much even with the amount of time they spent together, unless it was about how to take care of your blade or criticisms about his stance. Other than that there was only the sounds of their blades cutting through the air that kept the silence at bay.

"I thought you knew?"

Seeing as he wasn't getting a response, Darren elaborated. "News that Flavia got a new champion, you all of a sudden getting a student to train, and you're not even the _least_ bit suspicious of how much a coincidence that is?"

A snowball rolls between them, making the situation even more ridiculous in Darren's opinion.

Suddenly getting up Lon'qu quickly walked passed the still sitting Darren. "We'll stop here, Khan Flavia is expecting us to be there before your friends leave."

Watching as the myrmidon retreated Darren shook his head and asked aloud to no one in particular, "What was that all about?"

Popping his head out of the snowball, Grima tried his best to shrug.

"Beats me."

* * *

While Darren and his draconian partner were making their way back to the castle, the Shepherds were up and getting ready to leave. Now that they had their alliance they wanted to return quickly to Ylisse. With Frederick, Sully and Stahl tasked with the job of re-supplying the group's food stocks —Vaike couldn't help due to partying too hard last night— and other resources, they would be ready to leave in the hour.

"Chrom, could I talk to you for a moment?"

Said prince turned around to find his tactician and friend, Robin, walking up to him.

"Sure thing Robin. What is it you want to talk about?"

"Well," the tactician began, "I was wondering if we could recruit Darren as a Shepherd before we leave Regna Ferox."

"Really now, and why would that be?" inquired Frederick, who had just been 'walking by' when his charge was approached by Robin. It wasn't that he was _still_ suspecting him to be a spy, no, he was just being… wary.

Robin had to willfully command himself not to sigh when he heard the Great-Knight enter the conversation, and thankfully showed none of his annoyance beyond his brows becoming slightly furrowed. "Because it would be useful to have him around," He explained. "Yesterday when you," glancing at Chrom momentarily, "were unable to attend our meeting, Darren was the one who helped me with our plan. And even though I did most of the work, he showed a certain potential for tactics. I'm sure that given some time he could become a great tactician that could help me in later battles." Unsaid and unknown to Robin was that the only reason that Darren was able to help with _anything back then was because he had played the game before, that and having Grima also regaining those memories was almost akin to cheating; because he could recall every, single, detail there was in that one chapter._

Chrom seemed to think it over for a moment, having another person to help with the battle plans was always helpful. Battles he could do, but anything beyond the normal "charge!" and he was at a loss on what to do. Now that he thought about it, he really wished that his older sister would allow him to add tactics to his list of boring education during his childhood. "I don't see why not," he finally agreed. "I'll ask him to join the Shepherds before we leave."

"Thank you Chrom." With that Robin left to his room to pack up his things.

"I shall return to getting everything ready milord." And so Chrom was left by himself, not counting the giant pile of armour that has been standing nearby for the last couple of minutes. Poor Kellam.

* * *

Everyone was ready to leave, all the supplies were outside. All that was left to do was to say their goodbyes to both Khans and they could be on their way.

"Thank you once again for helping us Khan Flavia, Khan Basilio." Chrom said graciously.

Flavia laughed off the thanks, saying that it would well be worth it to beat the tar out of Plegians. Basilio however, apparently had a surprise for the Shepherds to take with them.

"A present from West Ferox, my former champion Lon'qu." He said simply as Lon'qu walked towards the group. Chrom was a little hesitant in replying to the… er… gift, as the brown haired swordsman looked quite apprehensive at the thought of leaving. "He might not talk much, but he's peerless with a sword. As good as Marth I'd say, I still can't figure out how he'd been beaten so easily."

"What?" Exclaimed a star-struck Lissa. "But he looks so strong!" She approached the newcomer, but with every step she took Lon'qu took a step back.

"Away woman!"

"H-huh? W-what did I do?"

Basilio guffawed at the sight of Lon'qu backing away from someone only a little above half his height. "Let's just say that the ladies tend to put Lon'qu on edge," he joked before sobering slightly. "Nonetheless, he is a capable swordsman. Consider him West Ferox's contribution to the Ylissean cause."

"And you're certain about this?" Chrom asked to get confirmation. At Basilio's nod he turned to the man in question, a questioning look in his eyes.

"You give the orders. I stab people." He responded simply.

"…Okay then. Welcome aboard Lon'qu."

With that the Shepherds turned to the exit and began to leave. Only Robin and Chrom stayed behind to talk to Flavia. The tactician asked her where Darren was.

"He should've been here," she answered, a small frown making its way onto her face. "He was training with Lon'qu before now. And if Lon'qu showed up that mea—" before she could finish the sound of a door opening loudly and heavy footsteps interrupted her. The three of them turned to find a familiar face, unfortunately for them however it was not the one they were looking for. Raimi entered the large room they were in. And despite that it seemed like the Knight had run there, she barely even looked winded as she quickly approached the East Khan.

Robin and Chrom watched quietly as Raimi began whispering into Flavia's ear and handed her a slip of paper. After reading the paper, the Khan nodded to Raimi and dismissed the Knight.

Sighing she turned back to the curious pair. "I don't know what you wanted to talk to Darren about, but it appears that he's already left Regna Ferox."

* * *

The cold winds appeared to accompany Darren as he ran across the land of snow at maximum speed. He carried a bag with a few days' supply of food in it over his shoulder. Grima was inside his hood sleeping —or what he liked to call, power saving mode— and away from the harsh bite of winter, occasionally feeding his partner small doses of energy to maintain the speed they were currently at.

' _You sure you don't mind not joining the Shepherds?_ ' The dragon asked curiously.

'Not at all,' Darren responded, 'I'll join up with them sooner or later. But we've things to do right?' He had decided that staying would have meant that he might have been offered a chance to join the group, so he chose to leave instead since he and Grima already had plans to do. On the way out he had passed a note to Raimi that was to be delivered to Flavia. There wasn't much on it, just enough to explain that he still wanted to be her champion but had to go do some things. It never hurt to have a place to go back to.

' _True,_ ' Grima conceded. ' _But our destination_ is _quite far away. Maybe we could make a detour?_ '

Darren grinned as he quickly caught on to what Grima was hinting at. He was thinking the same thing.

'I was thinking of heading over to Donny's place actually.'

* * *

 **An: Guess it's been a while huh? Sorry about that really, I figured out that I can write more when its like, really late ** – **around 3 am basically** – **than I can at some other time, and since I'm going to school now it becomes quite problematic. I can still write during other times of course, just not as much. So I apologize in advance when there are even bigger gaps between chapter releases. So hopefully you'll be satisfied with this chapter until then...**

 **I'd like to thank those who've reviewed my chapters so far, and to those who have favorited and followed the story. It feels great when I see these great reviews from you guys. No joke, I wished that I'd have a few who enjoyed the story, but the amount I've gotten so far surprises me. Hopefully I'll get more in the future, but I'm honestly satisfied with what I have right now.**

 **As usual, review if you enjoyed the chapter** – **if some things seem a bit off feel free to point it out actually, and I'll try my best to fix the problem. And if you've enjoyed the story so far, favorite and follow.**


	13. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: (Insert clever way to tell you that I _don't_ own Fire Emblem). Second off, there are a few details that differ from the game, but those are mostly concerning locations (more explanation at the end). And now on with the chapter!**

* * *

The Shepherds were getting worried at the amount of risen they've been encountering on the way back to Ylisse.

Only an hour after they left the protective gates of Regna Ferox did they come across a group of the undead. Robin had asked Sumia to occasionally take her pegasus to the air and scout ahead, so that they could change their course and avoid them. Since the tactician found out that fighting every group was proving more trouble than it's worth, though the bullion and weapons the Risen sometimes dropped was always helpful.

Chrom had protested against avoiding the Risen, saying that it would be dangerous to leave them alone, as they could harm any travelers they come by. But had grudgingly agreed after a pegasus-riding Risen got too close to harming Lissa, with only a timely arrow from Virion and Kellam guarding her at the time had saved her from being skewered by a lance.

Ever since then Chrom had placed their newest member, Lon'qu, on guard duty for Lissa. And while the young Princess complained about not being delicate, she didn't seem to mind being accompanied by the Feroxi warrior, even if Lon'qu himself tries to stay as far as possible from Lissa.

"Robin!" called a voice from above, snapping the tactician from his thoughts. Robin watched Sumia as she and her pegasus landed. "There's a large group up ahead, and I think they have a few Wyvern rid—EEK!" Unfortunately before she was able to finish the sentence, she somehow tripped while getting off her pegasus, sending snow flying up as she fell.

"Owie…"

Robin winced in sympathy, but since that made this the third time she tripped, he knew she'd be relatively fine.

Turning away from the downed flyer, Robin once again began moving to the front of the convoy to tell Chrom the news. Soon the group was moving around the Risen in their way.

So they missed the series of footsteps that they would've seen had they gone any further. And if you could look close enough, you would be able to see that the Risen group appeared to have gone through a recent battle.

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Twelve

* * *

"I am _never_ listening to you again."

"Hey, it worked out didn't it?"

"I could have died!"

"But I wouldn't have allowed it to happen if there was a possibility you could Darren. Plus, because of it you were able to unlock the energy draining ability."

"The ener–what?" Darren asked intelligently.

Earlier that day Darren had noticed a few large groups of Risen. It had been surprising to both him and Grima at how quickly the undead had populated the area. And while the two would normally skirt around the hostile groups, the most recent one was approached differently.

"You know… the thing you freaked out about back then?" Seeing no understanding on his partners' face he added, "You tried to eat a Risen's energy remember?"

Grima wanted to attack them.

"Oh… _that,"_ he said _,_ shuddering slightly at the memory. Had it really only been about a week since that happened? "How would you know I did?"

Even Darren himself was wondering why he'd agreed to such an idea.

"I could tell that your body could take the strain of the power that would be unleashed once the seals holding back that particular power were undone, and so did so." The dragon explained once again, before adding nonchalantly, "Not that it would've been _that_ much of a problem for you, since the actual ability isn't that powerful. You just seemed too weak at the time." ' _And I wanted to make sure you adapted to what was currently going on before throwing something else into the mix,_ ' thought Grima to himself.

"Well," Darren said flatly. "That's cool, I guess."

Now that he was walking, as he took a break from running most of the time, Darren thought back to the suici– _battle_ that had happened about a few hours ago.

'Honestly, how did I even think that was a good idea?' he asked himself.

A few hours ago the two engaged the Risen group. At the time Darren wanted to test out how much he's actually improved since his first encounter with one of the undead. Of course he wasn't so eager to prove himself that he'd fight them all by himself, so he and Grima decided to target the Risen on the outer edges and work from there.

Like a living arrow Grima had shot ahead of his partner to initiate the attack, and Darren had nearly stumbled in his charge when he saw the tiny dragon tackle a wyvern and its rider right out of the air. With the few seconds there were before he collided with the first Risen, Darren briefly pondered just how strong Grima was in his current form. It seemed completely ridiculous for something so small to have that much power, but then again, this was Grima he was thinking about. And he wasn't even at full power yet!

With a small smile, Darren attacked a spear wielding Risen that had been too busy watching the spectacle above to notice the approaching enemy. With a quick slash the head of the Risen fell to the ground with a soft thud, before dissipating into purple miasma. Unfortunately the action alerted the rest of the undead to the other presence amongst them, and Darren had to quickly draw back to avoid being impaled by a sword wielded by the closest Risen nearby. Quickly Darren had found himself locked in combat with multiple enemies.

Above the boy Grima was locked in mid-air combat with a undead wyvern and its equally undead rider. Darting away as the larger flyer attempted to bite him, Grima launched a blast at its unguarded face. The resulting explosion tore away some of the creature's scales from where the shot impacted, and left it careening towards the ground as it became disoriented. Crashing into the ground a few seconds later with its neck bending at an odd angle, the wyvern began dissipating, with the rider quickly following as it fell of the beast.

Darren, who had previously been fighting an extremely difficult four-on-one, sighed slightly in relief when the wyvern Grima had been fighting crashed into two of the Risen he had been fighting, allowing him some much needed breathing space. He was also grateful that despite the number advantage their enemies had, the Risen were completely disorganized in a fight. With as much speed as he could muster, Darren closed the district between himself and his target Risen; a spear wielding one. Narrowly dodging a lunge aimed at his stomach, the Hunter grabbed the extended spear by the shaft and held it there while making a lunge of his own at the now defenceless Risen. Tearing through weak armour, he pulled the spear in the opposite direction he was facing, pushing his blade further into the enemy. When he noticed that he hadn't done enough damage to kill it —and that the other Risen behind him was beginning to swing its sword in his direction — he was already ducking under the strike. The sword connected, beheading the other enemy.

That was when things began going downhill.

It began with two more wyvern riders taking to the air, meeting the smaller Grima in combat as they tried to land a hit on him. Following the aerial assault were blasts of magic from the ground. Very soon, Grima found himself avoiding all the attacks with no chance of retaliating.

For Darren it was a simple matter of more reinforcements—in the form of three Myrmidons, two mages, and a cavalier.

Never mind the constant volley of arrows he was now barely managing to avoid.

So it was understandable when Darren and Grima decided it was time to run awa– make a tactical retreat. They were thankful that the only thing that they had to worry about chasing them were the flyers of that group, but that was handled easily when Grima began firing at them like some cannon perched on top of Darren's head as he ran. Darren stopped after running for about thirty minutes, just in case they were still being pursued, but continued walking.

And here they were.

"Maybe the next time we run into more Risen you can practice draining them." Grima suggested, still perched on top of Darren's head as he rested.

Thinking about it Darren slowly came to a stop, the bits and pieces of what he could remember from back then coming to surface. The desperation, the fear of dying, and the ravenous hunger…

He shivered. He didn't like it one bit, and under other circumstances wouldn't bother with the subject any more. But… unless he wanted the possibility of that happening again he would have to eventually face it. He couldn't rely on Grima forever after all. Sighing he continued walking.

"I hope we get to Donnel's place soon…"

* * *

"I hope we get to Ylisse soon," Chrom sighed as he eyed the map in front of him.

The Shepherds had set up camp for the night. All of them were relatively tired, with the possible exception of Frederick, after many hours of walking, and the few battles between the small groups of Risen they encountered. Many were resting within their tents waiting for their dinner.

At the moment Chrom, Robin, and Frederick were inside the war tent discussing the group's current path, which had strayed way off course because of having to manoeuvre around the annoying amount of Risen groups. So now they were discussion on the best route to take so they could return to Ylisse.

"As do I milord," Frederick said as he glanced up from the map. "But we have to tread carefully here. We don't know where dangers could arise."

Robin silently agreed with the Great Knight, if they don't path properly they would be vulnerable to an ambush. Risen or bandit. Terrain often plays a role almost as important as the actual soldiers do in a battle. And if they put themselves into a position where they would be at a disadvantage in fighting the results of the battle could very well be devastating. Unfortunately they couldn't take the 'safest' route if it were too slow, since they were expected to be in Ylisstoll with the news of the newly made alliance between Regna Ferox and Ylisse.

Which put the tactician into his current problem of finding the best possible path to take.

He was a tactician not a navigator damnit!

Once again going over the map his eye caught something. Mentally recalling the amount of supplies the convoy had from the last time he checked, he grinned as he came to a solution.

"Hey Chrom," he began, catching both Frederick's and the prince's attention. "I think I know what we should do."

"Really? What is it Robin?"

His grin growing a little more, Robin began to explain his plan.

"Well you see, there's this village not too far away…"

* * *

Grima was clearly enjoying his stay in the village they finally found. Despite knowing that said village is very likely to come under attack in the near future. Darren came upon the village a few hours before the sun began to rise, and opted to rest until the small village awoke before entering. Picking a safe spot to rest until then, Darren sat down and promptly fell asleep.

Free to explore the new land Grima took off the moment he heard his partner's breathing slow down. Besides an attempt to keep him busy until the sun rose, the dragon was also making a mental map of the village and its surrounding area. That way he could plan out where the attack would most likely begin, and how to deal with it.

Plus it wouldn't hurt to take a single apple from its stall when he saw one right? He might not be the terrifyingly evil fell dragon everyone believed him to be, but he wasn't exactly a saint either.

The sun had risen for about another two hours before the town's residents began to stir.

After waking Darren up in his usual way, minus their usual banter, Grima gave the still waking boy a brief summary of what he found before providing directions to the inn they would be staying at and then hopping back into his hood. Darren quickly found the inn, and was relieved that the owner there was one of the people who had woken up soon after the sun rose. Though getting an odd look at first by the owner, he was given a room to stay in.

After paying with some money he had earned before the tournament in Regna Ferox and receiving the keys the teen entered his room. The two then decided to get themselves some well-deserved sleep.

The hustle and bustle of the town, now fully awake, woke Darren up first. As he lay there in his bed he began to wonder what they were going to do next.

It was between staring up at the ceiling and looking over at Grima when he realized something important:

They had no plan.

Refusing the sudden impulse to face palm, Darren instead sighed heavily.

"Man…"

* * *

After enjoying breakfast served by the innkeeper, Darren returned to his room, carrying a small loaf of bread for his companion. Closing the door behind him the teen tossed the loaf in the direction of the bead. He watched as the bread was snatched out of the air mid-flight, and then chuckled as it was quickly consumed by the dragon.

"So," Darren began, "what do we do now?"

Grima paused mid-bite to turn and look at him. "Don't you have a plan?"

Cringing slightly Darren stuttered, "a-ah, well, about that…"

Seeing the small dragon stare at him unblinkingly Darren began to fidget under the gaze.

"I… don't really, have a plan."

Of course he had a multitude of ideas that would help prepare for that inevitable bandit attack, but getting them into motion however…

Let's just say he was no Robin.

Grima was just about to berate his partner when he heard a sound that made him freeze instantly, and by the way Darren also stiffened he guessed that he heard it to.

After all, it wasn't every day you hear someone scream like that.

Shaking himself the dragon rose from the bed and flew to their room's window, all the while muttering grimly: "You better hope that it was just someone tripping, because there won't be much use for a plan if it isn't."

* * *

Roddick smiled sadistically as he lead his troops to the unsuspecting village. The original plan had been to attack as it began to get dark, but his men had been restless ever since finding it, so they settled for attacking in the morning instead. It was then that the barbarian leader thought that this was only fitting.

After all, it was natural to slaughter pigs in the morning right?

"Remember men," he said as they slowly edged closer to the village. "Kill the dangerous-looking ones first, then you can move onto the others." Seeing multiple nods from the other bandits, he smiled.

It wasn't a pleasant one. "Good. Now…" pointing his axe towards their destination he turned back to look at his men and roared: "Have at them! Make these pigs squeal!"

With a wordless roar of their own, the bandits surged as one to the village, fully intent on butchering its inhabitants.

* * *

Darren had burst out of the inn desperately hoping that his fears were misplaced, and that it was just a misunderstanding. Grima had taken to the roofs as a quicker way to find out what was happening. But the moment he looked around and saw the panic in the villagers' eyes as that ran his heart sunk, a few seconds after he resigned himself to what must be done.

'So, where are they Grima?' He asked through the mental link the two had.

' _South of the village,_ ' Grima answered his voice an unusual cold compared to how it normally is. Continuing the dragon asked, his voice now straining with barely contained anger, ' _Should I join in the fighting now?_ '

Darren shook his head reluctantly despite fully knowing that his partner couldn't see it. 'No, when we're far enough from the village then you can. Having witnesses in this village is just asking for trouble.' Running in the direction he was confident was south —since everyone was running away from there— Darren could see flames begin to rise from far away. 'What're they doing?' He asked as he increased his speed.

' _They're enjoying it_!' Grima seethed back, ' _Burning down houses, chasing down defenceless villagers—everything!_ ' The dragon's words seemed to reverberate within Darren's head as he watched. ' _They've even began taking hostages those —Donnel!_ '

With the words 'hostages' and 'Donnel' in the same sentence Darren forgot about all ideas of conserving energy and began sprinting as fast as he could.

It wasn't long before he burst into a small clearing, his eyes wide and searching wildly for any signs of life. The clearing that he entered was lined with a few small stands, meaning that this place was most likely a market of sorts. A few of the stands were broken, with pieces of wood and their contents littered the ground. And the smell of smoke was the strongest here.

It was also happened to be the place where the bandits were keeping their hostages.

Thankfully he wasn't immediately spotted the moment he arrived, whatever guards posted here were listening intently to —he guessed— their leader give some sort of speech. Well, some were actually. Others were simply grinning menacingly at their sitting captives with their axes and blades of different kinds gleaming in the light.

Darren's eyes roamed around the villagers, searching for one in particular. It would have been hard _not_ to miss the sight of someone wearing a bucket on their head. The only thing was that there were _two_ of them in the crowd.

Suddenly one of the bucket wearers stood up, showing an older man that was _definitely_ not Donnel, but shared a resemblance to the village boy in question.

'Is that Donnel's dad?!' Darren found himself thinking incredulously. They had the same colour of hair from what he could see, so wasn't that enough of an indicator in the world of Fire Emblem? He looked back at the crowd of villagers to the other bucket wearer, and sure enough, he was able to make out the form of Donnel. The young lad was staring up at his father (?) in a mixture of surprise and fear.

' _It has to be._ ' Grima murmured as he watched the villager oppose the bandit leader. ' _You do realize that means it is a very likely chance that he will die any moment now right?_ '

The spectator's eyes widened at the information, memories telling him of the details concerning this particular paralogue. 'Well not if I can help it.' Filled with determination, Darren took a step forward to intervene—

' _Don't._ '

—but froze once he heard the dragon's command.

'W-wha? What do you mean don't?' He stammered out, surprised at how his body froze without his permission.

' _Think about it for a moment will you?_ ' Grima said in exasperation. ' _Now I don't know any more about time-travel than anyone else, but maybe, just maybe, this is supposed to happen. If Donnel's father doesn't die or the events currently happening to this village weren't there, what would that mean for Donnel? He might not have joined the Shepherds when they arrived; instead choosing to stay here. Where he would wait until the next bandit attack, or when Gangrel's army arrives and wreaks havoc on Ylisse's lands._

' _Darren, I'm telling you this because I want you to know that sometimes it's best to leave things untouched. I'm sure you wouldn't like knowing that Donnel chose to stay here because of your actions weighing on your shoulders. Would you?_ '

Watching as the villager took up a weak looking spear from the ground, Darren could only watch as events began to unfold in front of him. The sounds of panicked shouts echoing off walls and the constant crackle of flames filtered into white noise as the man whose life he held in his hands took a step.

'…I don't know…'

* * *

 **AN: (Insert an apology for my lateness.) Now, the annoying thing is with this chapter, is the fact that I had an idea of what I wanted to do, which was actually said by one of my reviewers. But the only problem was that —like Darren in this chapter— had no idea on how to go about doing it. So this was what you got instead, and I'm sorry if it wasn't what you expected.**

 **Another thing that I mentioned above at the beginning of the chapter was the few differences between the story and the game. And that was the location of Donnel's town. I wanted to see how the area (i.e: heavy forests, flat lands, ect) looked like. But when I searched it up the paralogue was actually located on an island... so I ended up moving it to an area in between chapters two and three and a little to the left, just in case you were wondering.**

 **Since that pretty much wraps up my author's note I'll move onto my usual goodbye.**

 **If you've enjoyed the chapter feel free to leave a review, criticisms (as long as they're sensible) are acceptable, and if there is a mistake that I missed please point it out so I can fix it. And if you've enjoyed the journey so far, favorite and follow.**

 **Until next time (Whenever that is...).**


	14. Chapter 13

**AN: I WILL NOT LET THIS FIC DIE! NEVER! It will continue! I have seen too many fictions with so much potential stop, and I won't be one of those.**

 **I'll just take forever to update...**

 **Ahem, well, that's all I have to say for now, more at the end of the chapter.**

 **Disclaimer : I do not own Fire Emblem, if I did —which I don't— it wouldn't have had nearly as much success as it does now. So I'm glad I don't.**

* * *

Donnel had always thought that good things happen to good people.

He usually helped out around the village; doing tasks and errands that he was asked to do without complaint. He loved both his family and home and cared for them very much.

So why was this happening to him?

The young boy stared up in silent horror as his father challenged the leader of the bandit gang all by himself. All around him his fellow villagers were doing the same, with a few of the younger ones openly crying in the arms of their parents. It was all surreal to him. If it wasn't for the rocks laying on the ground digging into his knees Donnel might've thought this was all a nightmare. And soon he would've woken up and thanked Naga that it was only just.

But alas, it wasn't.

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Thirteen

* * *

Options. Options which led to different choices. Those of which would lead to different events, which could change everything you know about something, or nothing at all.

In other words, Darren had no idea what to do.

He wanted to change what was happening right then and there. Who wouldn't, right? This, didn't have to happen, right? Just thinking about it was driving him mad.

'This is just so, so…'

' _Stupid? Annoying? Aggravating?_ '

'—frustrating!' Darren finally shouted through his link, throwing his arms up in anger at the injustice of it all.

However, it appeared as if the universe had just decided that he had run out of time and decided to make the choice for him.

A bandit had turned around after hearing the rustling of cloth Darren made in his moment of frustration and spotted him immediately.

"Oi boys," the bandit called to his comrades, pointing his finger at the solitary figure. "There's still one left! Let's get 'im!"

The news caught the attention of all the bandits in the area, which conveniently included Roddick for the shortest of moments as his eyes went to the source of the commotion. That moment was just enough for the brave —or foolish— villager to close the distance between him and the bandit leader and lunge with his lance.

Reacting almost immediately to the attack, Roddick hastily brought his axe up to try and block it, but it wasn't fast staggering away from the armed villager with one hand covering his wounded abdomen, Roddick grimaced in pain.

The villagers, now seeing that their guards were currently distracted by the newcomer and with no other threats nearby, scrambled to their feet and ran to safety. Anywhere but there would have been perfectly fine for any of them.

Meanwhile Darren found himself in a familiar situation he was really starting to hate: he was outnumbered. Again.

'This is happening way too often!' He growled in annoyance as he parried a strike heading for his neck, and danced out of the way of an incoming axe. Taking a quick breather Darren took stock of situation. At that moment there were four bandits fully intent on killing him,and the bandit leader, Ro-something if he could remember correctly, was backing away from the villager duo. That was good. It meant that there was one less enemy to worry about at the moment. It sucked that he didn't know how many bandits were rampaging in the village at that moment, but he wasn't about to complain about his current odds.

'Let's see if this works.'

' _What're going to do?'_

Taking a step back he grinned cheekily at the slowly approaching bandits. "Was that all? I know girls braver than you chickens!" he taunted. Well, he didn't actually know Sully personally, but hey, they didn't have to know that.

"Chickens?" One of them seethed, taking the bait. "We'll show you, little piglet!"

Now absolutely positive that he was going to have them chasing him now, Darren fully turned around and began running. The bandits saw this and gave chase without a second thought.

' _Well, you have them chasing you now,_ ' Grima stated dryly. ' _Now what?'_

Taking care to run in the view of the bandits, Darren smiled. 'Now that part one of my plan is done, we can begin part two.'

' _And that would be…?_ '

'Well first off, you should quickly tell Donnel and his dad to get the heck out of here, then you should meet back up with me so we could find a good place to set up an ambush. Any other questions? I kinda have six people on my back now.'

' _No. Just remember to stay safe Darren._ '

'Always will.'

Feeling the sensation of their link dull further into the background Grima turned around to find Roddick now I'm being flanked by two bandits that definitely weren't there before. Now with backup the bandit leader was prepared to end the life of the one who defied him.

* * *

Donnel's eyes widened in shock as the bandits holding his fellow villagers captive suddenly took off after a stranger he didn't recognize. While everyone else decided they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth and took off, his father used the time bought by the distraction and tried to finish of Roddick. But that plan had ended the moment said bandit leader was suddenly flanked by two of his men.

"Donnel," his father calmly told him, lance brandished threateningly and never taking his eyes off the trio.

"Y-yes Pa?"

"I want you to find your mother and run as far from here as you can.

Suddenly Donnel found the lance his father was just wielding thrust into his hands. His father's face was showing signs of old age, Donnel noticed. But that didn't take away the look of determination that he was giving his son.

"H-huh? Pa? W-what are you doing?" The young villager asked in alarm.

If anything the father seemed to grow calmer as the other grew more panicked.

"Tell your Ma I love her. Now," he turned around to face the three that sought to terrorize his village, his home, his family. The soft gaze he held for his son hardened immediately under those thoughts.

"Run along now."

Eyes flickering from the approaching trio to his father, Donnel took a single step backwards. Followed by another. And then another. Until he grit his teeth and turned around completely and began running.

As the sounds of the footsteps quieted Roddick sneered through his grimace of pain. "How noble. Now he won't have to see you get gutted like the pig you are."

But the man stayed silent, his face betraying no emotion.

Growing frustrated at the lack response he was getting Roddick barked out his next orders. "Just kill him and get over with it!"With no further prompting needed, the bandits charged forward with their axes held menacingly, intent on ending it quickly.

But it appeared that the older villager wasn't going to go down without a fight, and showed that he got into his fair share of fights in his earlier days by skimming around the falling axe and scoring a solid right hook onto the bandit's face. Dazed by the blow the bandit staggered backwards. Now with only one opponent to worry about for the time being, the bucket-wearing villager quickly tackled the other bandit and began wrestling over the axe.

Placing a kick in exchange for a punch earned a grunt of pain from the villager, but it was worth it as he got what he was aiming for. Armed with an axe the villager tried to finish off his still grounded opponent. Unfortunately his age was beginning to point out that he was not as young as he used to be, and wasn't able to bring the axe down quick enough before the person underneath rolled out of the way. He then gasped at how taxing it was hefting the axe around. Sweat was rolling down his aged face and his breath was coming in ragged pants.

That was when he was forcefully reminded that there weren't two enemies he had to face, but three. All it took was the sound of metal tearing through the air and the searing pain coming from his back to tell him so. A silent scream of pain racked through him as his legs gave out, sending him to the ground.

Dropping a used vulnerary Roddick smiled gleefully at his downed prey. "Well lookie here, I never woulda thought you still had some kick in you." He raised his axe high up into the air and continued. "But now it's time to move onto other things, like killing you." With that he brought his axe down at full force…

"I'll just stop you right there."

Or at least he would have, if his axe hadn't decided that it was now a sentient being and refused to fall any further than it already did. Finally registering the voice Roddick turned his head around to view the one who stopped him.

Now normally a Grima the size of your hand would hardly seem like a threat to anyone —unless you knew him of course— and would probably be considered as some sort of Grimleal toy made in the image of their god. But ever since one of the seals placed on his partner was undone the earth dragon was allowed a larger reserve for his energy, thus allowing him to take on a much larger form. Now, being the length of his partner's legs as opposed to a hand was hardly a fraction of his original size (before he was forced to flee into the depths of his mind) —or even his current size (in-game size)—, but it was still an improvement nonetheless.

Details aside, Grima stared into Roddick's widening eyes with unblinking red orbs as he kept the axe suspended in mid-air with his teeth.

"Boo."

Roddick lost the grip of his axe and fell to the ground with a startled yelp, his mind trying to come to terms with just what was in front of him. This had the same effect on the two bandits accompanying him, their mouths agape and weapons close to falling to the ground in their loosened grips.

The sound of splintering wood was accompanied by a dull thud alerted Riddick to the current state of his weapon as it lay uselessly on the ground, Grima having bit through the wooden handle with ease. Spitting out a small piece of wood to the side Grima returned his gaze to the bandits.

"You seem to enjoy slaughtering helpless victims don't you?" The dragon questioned, even if it sounded more like a statement.

Receiving no answer from the unfortunate trio Grima let an obviously fake —if you knew him anyway, but it was toothy nonetheless— grin spread through his face.

"Let's see how you like being on the opposite end of the spectrum."

They didn't even have enough time to blink before the dragon was upon them.

* * *

Grima looked down at the villager that was Donnel's father and sighed in relief when he saw the slow rise and fall of his chest. He would live. He just hoped that Donnel runs into the Shepherds soon and brings back Lissa to heal the poor guy. The dragon turned to begin looking for Darren. Sure, he felt guilty for just leaving the father all alone, but he couldn't do anything else for him. He even felt guilty for not stepping in when the villager was being ganged up on, but needed Donnel to be out of the picture believing that his father would stand until the very end. That way there would be a better chance that events would play out normally, than they would if he stepped in earlier.

That was when he the heard words he wasn't expecting.

Neither were quite sure how the words were spoken, being from entirely different worlds altogether, but seeing the morning sunlight bounce off the six pure white wings and their owner, the almost unconscious villager muttered the first thing that came in his dazed mind.

"An… angel… thank you."

It was loud enough for Grima to hear, making the dragon stop and blink in surprise. He mulled over the words for a short moment, before he let out a short chuckle and continued on his way.

"No, I'm most likely on the other side of that belief."

* * *

After Donnel explained what was happening in his village, Robin was more willing to forgive Frederick for waking everyone up before the sun rose than he was a few hours ago. Being chased by a bandit, the bucket wearing villager had been trying his best to stay ahead of his would-be killer. Luckily the bandit was scared off by the approaching Shepherds before the boy's legs gave out.

Despite the fact that he had come close to being killed a few minutes ago, Donnel nearly forgot about his village once he saw Chrom. After saying a few titles that Robin was confident weren't real, the prince managed to get the nervous boy to explain the situation.

A brigand. Bandits were attacking the village and rounding up the inhabitants. Likely to transport them to a bandit camp.

"Please Your Lordliness," Donnel begged Chrom. "My Ma an' Pa are back there. An' I just can't lose 'em."

The blue haired prince grimaced at the thoughts of the boy losing both parents, an experience he was all too familiar with, and gave Donnel a determined look.

"Alright, we'll go."

His eyes widening, Donnel stared at the prince for a full second before looking away and wiped at his eyes with his arm, but a tear still managed to sneak past.

"Thank you." He finally said, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could.

Robin and a few other Shepherds smiled at the scene, but unfortunately there were other things he had to do now, like getting everyone ready for a .

Now, were did he put Vaike's axe again? He swore the next time the blonde forgets it he'd chain the weapon to his arm. Permanently. And why is he getting the feeling he's forgetting someone?

* * *

Darren pushed away a bandit he'd been forced to lock blades with, sending the swordsman to the ground, and continued running.

'Damnit Grima, where are you!' He fumed to himself.

It had already been minutes since he last talked to the dragon.

Minutes!

He wouldn't mind fighting these bandits under normal circumstances; that being out in the open, and even though the amount of them would prove difficult, they were uncoordinated. That would make things easier.

But in the village where he had considerably less movement space? With the enemy using weapons with longer reach than his own? He didn't want to kill himself!

Already he could feel himself slowing down, and found himself grudgingly giving an extremely small amount of respect to the bandits chasing him for their persistence. Even so, it was odd how the ones not pursuing him suddenly stopped what they were doing and began to chase him. They weren't that single-minded were they?

His questioning thoughts on bandit coordination were stopped by a thrown axe burying itself into a wall a few centimetres from his face. Screeching to a halt, Darren went cross-eyed from looking at the axe. Quickly ducking under the thrown weapon, he continued running, albeit much more worried now.

'Hey, I'm finished up here.' Grima said through their link.

'Finally! Now come and help me deal with this! I found a good spot where they'll have no chance to fight us during my second lap around this village.' With some effort, Darren managed to lead the bandits still chasing him to the ambush point. Unknowing of their fate the bandits followed the fleeing teen without an ounce of doubt. Even when they were lead into an alley that ended in a dead end, they merely grinned at the thought of their chase ending and their prey having no where else to run.

"We've —hahh— got ya now —hahh— punk." One of them taunted, but because of the heavy breathing from all the running he did earlier, it came across more as a wheezing sound than anything else. This was accompanied by a few other taunting comments from the bandits.

More than a little winded himself, Darren brought his breathing under control as best he could. Standing straight from his previous hunched over position, the teen then made a point of looking past the recovering bandits before grinning in a not at all friendly manner.

"Whose got who now?" He asked no one in particular.

The gathered bandits fought against sudden the feeling of impending doom gathering in their stomachs. The few of them close enough to spot the direction Darren was looking at slowly turned their heads to look at what was behind them.

Grima waited for those few to spot him before announcing his presence in a casual manner.

"'Sup."

To the bandits the fact that their companions —the ones who turned to look— paled at what they saw, caused the rest of them to whirl around to the one who talked.

Some of them were expecting some prince to show up. Others were expecting a knight in shining armor. One or two of them even imagined a mage in an oversized cloak for some reason.

None of them expected a dragon, of all things, to show up.

Sure, it wasn't exactly a big dragon. But to the bandits, a dragon was a dragon, no matter how small.

"Now," Darren said almost conversationally, causing them to look back at him. "Like I said earlier…" A metal hiss sounded from his arm, and with it two blades slid out of the metal sheath attached to his forearm.

"Whose got who now?"

"Huh," one of them said nervously, glancing repeatedly at both the dragon and teen as sweat ran down his face. "H-how about we t-talk this over?"

The dragon blocking the only exit to the alley grinned.

"No."

"Well, that kinda sucks, I was hoping that we could— OH GODS NOT THE FACE!"

* * *

Darren slumped against a wall in exhaustion. Despite their unorganized state, and their exhaustion, among other things, the bandits still managed to put up a fight. Grima fared better than he did in the fight; unscathed and simply slightly winded. Meanwhile Darren gained himself a few new cuts in the chaos that would definitely need to be looked at sometime in the future.

Looking over at the results of said chaos, the teen sighed and looked away.

"I should be horrified right now, shouldn't I Grima?" He asked.

The dragon grimaced at the cold emotionless tone that was used.

"That's what the normal human response would be like, yes." He answered after hesitating. "But I guess your response —or lack thereof— is tied to the fact that you were reborn here as a Risen with your memories intact."

Seeing his partner show no signs of cheering up, the dragon quickly added, "At least the thought counts Darren. The fact that you know what should be happening proves that you're still human."

The human only nodded once before he suddenly stood up and began stretching. "Speaking of knowing what's supposed to be happening," he started with a light voice, all signs of his previous mood gone. "How many bandits did we fight?"

Startled by the sudden turn in attitude, Grima had to think for a moment for the answer.

"I think there were about nine… plus the other three I dealt with back there with Donnel's dad." He finally said. "But what does that have to do with… ah."

"If you're thinking the same thing as me, then yes, there are either still a few more bandits running around, or there will be reinforcements on their way." Darren concluded.

"Great," Grima quipped jokingly. "Now I can see you running around again when you get outnumbered."

Glaring at the dragon, Darren turned away and was about to retort when the sounds of combat interrupted him. The pair turned their heads to the sound and slowly began to edge forward to it.

"They got here faster than I thought." Darren muttered, peering around the corner to watch Frederick charge at an archer.

"It's time we took our leave then." Grima stated. In a second darkness obscured the dragon from view, and emerged another second later in his original —smaller— form. Wasting no time he flew into the familiar pouch that was Darren's hood.

Darren didn't want to meet the Shepherds again. Especially after leaving unexpectedly. And with no convincing excuse. No, it was probably best to slip away unnoticed.

"Alright, let's go."

* * *

Chrom watched as Lissa went to work on the villager Donnel said was his father. The man was found unconscious near three dead bodies. The method two of the bandits were killed by left the impression that they were mauled by something not human, and he shuddered at what caused it. The third, the leader as Donnel confirmed, had probably died from bleeding out from a large slash across his torso. Yet the older villager had shown no signs of committing the acts.

It appeared as if the villager had a saviour arrive while he was unconscious. Donnel had mentioned someone showing up to lure away most of the bandits, but from what they were told, the chances of that person being able to make it back and save his father were very slim.

"We should help the others now," Chrom stated. With the exception of himself, Robin, Donnel, Lissa and her appointed guardian Lon'qu, all the Shepherds were exploring the village, searching for hostiles and innocents alike.

Robin nodded wordlessly in agreement, and began moving further into the village. Chrom watched the tactician leave with a raised eyebrow. It seemed like Robin had been thinking deeply about something ever since the scene they saw earlier. 'Oh well,' the prince thought. 'He'll talk when he figures it out.' He turned to face his sister and Donnel. "You two stay here, Lon'qu will keep you safe."

Lon'qu grunted, but didn't object.

Lissa, on the other hand, huffed and crossed her arms, pouting up at her brother. "I'm not delicate Chrom, I can go with the rest of you too."

Chrom smiled at her, and reached over to mess up her hair, before quickly removing his hand as Lissa tried to bat it away. "I know, but it would be better to stay here just in case Donnel's father wakes up." Seeing her begrudgingly accept the fact, he turned to begin heading into the village.

"I wanna go too Sir."

Chrom turned to find Donnel with his lance at his side and staring straight at him resolutely. "You should stay Donnel," he tried to convince the boy. "Your father would want to to know if you were alright when he wakes up."

"I'm sorry your Lordliness," he said with complete seriousness. "But my Pa was willing ta risk his life ta save me. An' so is all of the Shepherds. So I want ta help you deal with the dastards that are trying ta attack my home, even if I haven't stuck a pig yet."

Prince and villager locked eyes for a moment, the former looking studying the latter curiously. Chrom saw that Donnel was shaking slightly, but one look into his eyes showed the same determination that he'd seen in all of his Shepherds at one point. Sighing, the prince gave up on trying to convince Donnel to stay.

"Come on then," he finally said, ignoring Lissa's indignant cry of "Hey!" as he turned once again.

Donnel blinked once, as if he expected that he'd have to argue with a prince of all people. That moment of confusion quickly passed when he saw Chrom getting further away, and rushed to catch up.

"Hey! Wait a sec!

Lissa saw all of this and sighed, before plopping down in a very unladylike manner, clearly showing that she didn't like being left behind, even if she had to take care of someone. She glanced over at Lon'qu, who was suddenly further away than she remembered, but was still in the same leaning position he was before.

How does he keep doing that?

* * *

Robin hadn't gone far from where Chrom was, and was currently wandering while deep in thought. He knew that it would be very unwise to be in such a situation while there were enemies around... but there was something nagging at the back of his mind. Back where Lissa healed Donnels father he felt something, indescribable. The only thing he came up with was when his subconscious began telling him that it was familiar.

But how could that be?

It definitely wasn't the gruesome scene, that much he could tell right away. He couldn't hear anything that would trigger the feeling — or else the attack on Southtown would have announced the presence back then. That left out sound... Smell? A quick sniff made the tactician wrinkle his nose. The smell of death and things burning certainly was memorable... but like with hearing. smell didn't trigger the familiar feeling. It was definitely somewhere in the air though, at least back there, that much he could tell. Robin rubbed his nose and sighed in frustration.

'It's most likely just another thing I don't remember about my past.' He thought darkly, not for the first time angry at his amnesiac state.

It took him a few seconds to realize someone was trying to talk to him before he broke out of his thoughts.

"-obin? Oi, I'm tryna talk to you." Sully was leaning down on her horse waving a hand in his face in an attempt to get his attention.

"Hm? Oh, uh, what is it Sully?" He asked.

The cavalier frowned as she delivered the news. "Ruffles spotted some more bandits on their way to the village, not a lot of them, but from what he said they were archers and armored ones."

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Robin murmured to himself. "Did you guys already take out all the bandits in the village?"

"Frederick and Stahl found one or two roamin' the streets, but that was all." The redhead scowled suddenly. "Unless they already hightailed it oughta here."

"Unlikely." Said a new voice, causing the pair to look in the direction it came from.

Miriel calmly walked toward the tactician and cavalier with Vaike in tow, a slightly put-off look on her usually expressionless face. Even Vaike didn't look like his normal boasting and confident self, which raised alarms that weren't already blaring in Robin's mind. "During my exploratory rounds within the vicinity, my partner and I happened upon something... unsettling."

Sully and Robin blinked, not exactly understanding everything Miriel just said. "Er..."

"We found some dead bodies a few minutes ago," Vaike clarified bluntly. "Bandits."

"Bandits?" Robin asked. "What happened to them?"

Miriel opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off when Vaike interrupted. "It'd be easier to explain if you saw." The blonde then began to walk in the direction he came from... before being yanked in a different direction by Miriel.

"I do believe that it was this in this direction."

"Er, uh, hehe..."

Robin wisely chose to ignore when Vaike somehow began to steer off path again and turned back to Sully, who seemed to have chosen to do the same thing. "You should probably get everyone to come see this as well. Anything that can make both of them act like that is probably important."

"Right." After receiving a quick nod from the cavalier, Robin began walking in the direction Miriel and Vaike went, leaving her alone.

It wasn't until a few seconds after Robin was out of sight that she remembered her earlier news. "Hold on a sec, what about the incoming bandits!"

* * *

Sumia glanced at a dust trail suddenly leaving the village, clearly confused at how fast it was moving and at a loss for what was creating it. Another glance more to her side showed a small group of people approaching the village... at a very slow pace. Well, compared to the mysterious dust trail that was currently going over a hill, anything moving at a walking pace would look like they were barely moving at this altitude. She shook her head. She was getting distracted. Manoeuvring her pegasus to start descending, the pegasus knight thought it would be best to tell the others about what she found.

Still, taking a quick glance at the disappearing trail of dust, she wondered at just what was causing it.

Down at ground level, Darren was running as fast as he could away from the village as he possibly could, thankful that he managed to get out undetected. After the minor heart attack he had when he heard footsteps nearing his location in the alley, he was also thankful that the Shepherds were most likely searching another part of the village for bandits, since he didn't have any more close calls after that.

After reaching the bottom of a small hill, the teen took a moment to catch his breath.

"Alright, we made it out."

Grima took that moment to pop out of Darren's hood to sigh in relief. "I thought you were caught back there. That wouldn't have been good."

Letting out a nervous chuckle Darren wordlessly agreed. "So, now what?"

"We go west." Grima answered, pointing out the direction with a wing. "The nearest Grimleal church is only about half a day's run from the border at the usual pace you can run. That way we can take it out and start heading back to Ylisse." The dragon frowned in thought for a moment before continuing. "Now I'm not sure how far apart events happen here compared to the game, but I'd like to make it there before Emmeryn's assassination attempt if we could."

Now fully recovered, Darren began jogging in the direction Grima pointed out, picking up speed with every step. Soon he was racing across a field. Smiling he reassured the sombre dragon through their mental link, his voice would otherwise be thrown into the wind.

'We'll get there in time Grima, I'll make sure of it. Validar won't even know what hit him.'

* * *

 **AN: 5.1k words! Damn... Not gonna joke, this chapter was the one I had the most fun with so far, even if it was the hardest to write. I'm not the best writer, so I struggle when putting my ideas to text. But... I know it definitely isn't perfect, but I'm definitely proud of this chapter.**

 **On another note, I don't know how to write Donnel dialogue —or D.D. as I just came up with—** **so any recommendations or advice on how to make it better would be appreciated. And Miriel makes me feel inferior. And she barely even had dialogue!**

 **Sorry if things are moving along slowly, but I'm serious when I say that things are gonna pick up speed in the next few chapters. I've got plans and I want them to happen.**


	15. Chapter 14

**AN : So... I lied... Well, not really... never mind, yeah, I did. I guess I didn't learn my lesson when I said updates would come sooner. School and my laziness are my main problems. Not to mention me starting up my new series: Werewolf in Ylisse. Shameless promotion, I know. But hey, it seems to be doing fine considering it has only two chapters.**

 **In all honesty I'm afraid my update will drown soon after it gets posted. With Fates out there are so many new stories being posted every time I check for new updates. So I just decided to just throw it out there and hope for the best.**

 **By the way, the main reason I haven't posted a new chapter for WiY is 'cause I'm having difficulties writing dialogue for Maribelle. I don't want to make her seem too casual or too stuck-up, and can't seem to find a balance. If someone can PM me a few tips on writing her I'd be grateful.**

 **Another thing you should know before reading this. There were long breaks in between writing this chapter, so if there are problems or things that don't add up feel free to PM me or let me know in the reviews. And know that I'll be rewriting/fixing a few other chapters (mainly chapter two, titled "chapter one") so I don't cringe as much as I do know when reading them over. Other than that, there's not much else to say. I'll see you next update**

* * *

The Shepherds stared at the dead bodies of bandits lying in the alley. There was no doubt that this was where all the bandits previously attacking the village ended up. Staring into the alley, Chrom was suddenly glad Lissa wasn't called to join the rest of them, and then grimaced at the grisly sight.

"I guess that takes care of one part of the problem." Robin admitted, now looking away. "Now we just need to take out the ones on their way to the village." Shaking his head to focus himself, he began to think of a plan to deal with the reinforcements.

'They don't know that their allies are already dealt with,' he thought eyeing the bodies for a second before returning them to look at the ground. 'Which would make a simple ambush the easiest plan of action to take.'

"Alright everyone," he said, drawing everyone's' attention. The Shepherds all looked to their tactician, faces in different states in reaction to the conditions of the bandits. From the steel-like indifference of Frederick, to the pale shocked look of Sumia.

"I have a plan."

* * *

The Other Way - Chapter Fourteen

* * *

A cold wind ran through the quiet village as eight bandits carrying various weapons entered it. They thought nothing of the ominous silence as they strolled through with an air of confidence, eager to regroup with the rest of their brigand. Taking note of a few buildings previously set on fire almost completely reduced to ashes, some grinned in pleasure. Another successful haul, some of them thought.

They weren't sure what those Grimleal freaks wanted with so many hostages —actually they had a good idea what, they just didn't want to think about it— but as long as they got paid they weren't going to ask questions. And if a few were killed along the way because of their boss' habits…

They weren't going to argue with the guy. Roddick just didn't seem to be the type that was completely there to some of them.

It was just… the farm threats tend get old after the third time he monologues. Sometimes he was almost as bad as those Grimleal they dealt with. Almost.

One of the bandits, a mage, finally began to feel that something wasn't right. "Uh, guys? Don't you think this looks a little suspicious?" He asked nervously, fidgeting with the old fire tome he held.

"Don't be such a wimp," snorted another bandit, "there's nothing wrong with a little silence in a village that's currently being attacked by bandits."

Slowly the small group slowed to a stop, finally paying closer attention to the eerie silence.

The bandit previously talking continued, ignorant of the growing unease of his comrades. "Just because we haven't seen or heard any sign of our group since last night doesn't mean that they're probably dead, leaving us, a smaller group better off protecting our camp, completely at the mercy of whoever killed them."

Now the other bandits were openly sweating in fear. The words sounding too true to the current situation. A few of them were gripping their weapons tightly, their eyes darting around to try and find any signs of the main group.

Still, the bandit continued his scolding of the mage. "If that were the case, the chances of us walking right into a trap the moment we stepped into the village would have been a hundred percent. But that's ridiculous."

Then he stopped to actually think about it.

"Oh cra—"

"ATTACK!"

With the command Robin launched an elthunder bolt to the bandits, followed closely by Miriel's elfire and volley after volley of arrows from Virion. Next the mounted units of the Shepherds charged, riding through the empty streets to gain enough momentum to separate the panicking bandits before they could group together.

An archer tried to return fire, but his concentration was interrupted by way of a lance heading his way. Donnel's eyes never wavered as his arm thrust out, having spent a majority of his time while waiting for the bandits convincing himself that he could fight. Accompanying the villager, Chrom slashed at a nearby knight armor-wearing bandit, and grimaced when Falchion simply slid off the heavy armor with no effect.

That grimace quickly turned into a blink of surprise when the armored bandit was suddenly batted away.

"Havin' a tough time Chrom?" Grinning at the surprised prince, Vaike hefted his hammer onto his shoulder. With the report of there being heavily armored units, Robin had suggested that the blonde should use a hammer and focus on them.

He definitely did not lose his axe… maybe.

Suddenly there was a hiss as an arrow flew through the air. Before Vaike could even react when he heard it, a blur formed in front of him. The sound of metal slicing through the air was closely followed by an arrow falling harmlessly to the ground, cut clean in half.

"Pay attention!" Lon'qu lectured, never taking his eyes off the enemy, his Killing Edge already poised to strike again.

"Tch." Clicking his tongue in annoyance Vaike simply waved off the warning with his confidence, much to Lon'qu's very own annoyance. "They got a lucky shot."

Chrom rolled his eyes at his friend's confidence, smiling briefly before he focused on the battle once again. It seemed like the bandits were forgetting about safety in their panic, and were just blindly attacking anything that moved. He was thankful that within nearly a minute since the ambush began the number of bandits were already cut in half, with the rest injured in some way.

Not forgetting the person he was paired up with, Chrom turned to look in Donnel's direction as Vaike and Lon'qu went on ahead. For a moment he was worried that the young villager was going into shock, but he was proven wrong when Donnel tore his gaze from the dead archer, looking no less sure of himself than he had before.

Still, he had to make sure. "Are you okay Donnel?"

Letting a small smile flicker to his face, Donnel put an end Chrom's concern with a simple: "Yes Sir."

With a nod the prince turned to face the remaining bandits, giving Donnel a sidelong glance. "Let's finish this up then shall we?" Given the recent events, Chrom found himself wanting to offer Donnel a chance to join the Shepherds. The young villager had gained his respect with how he handled himself in a battle. And so what if he wasn't trained in the ways of battle? That's what they had Frederick for. Lon'qu could help too, he did train Darren didn't he?

Unknowing of Chrom's plans, Donnel simply nodded.

Robin sighed in relief as the battle began to wind down. Placing his tome back into his coats pocket, the tactician watched as the last bandit was taken out by a coordinated attack between Sumia and Chrom. Not too far from him Miriel and Virion put away their own weapons of battle.

The village was finally safe.

"As expected of the beautiful Sumia to end this battle with a magnificent strike." Virion exclaimed as the ranged members of the Shepherds approached the rest of the group.

Turning a light shade of red at the praise, Sumia answered modestly. "I-I didn't really do—"

Or at least tried to.

"Bugger off, Ruffles." Said Sully, frowning from atop her horse. Beside her Stahl rode on silently, his mind too preoccupied with thoughts of their next meal to speak up for his fellow male. He hadn't gotten to eat much this morning; from having to wake up early, pack up his tent, and immediately set off on their march. The most he'd eaten was a few slices of bread he managed to swipe before they left.

Taking the threat in stride, Virion turned to face the redhead as she dismounted. "Ah my dearest Sully. You need not worry yourself, for you are still the most beautifu— urk!" Unfortunately for the Archest of Archers it was hard to talk with a knee in his stomach, and he crumpled to the floor in the most dignified way he could manage.

"I don't care."

"T-though your w-words may say so, y-your actions say otherwi— eee!"

By then most of the Shepherds had turned away from the two. With the exception of Sumia, who was trying in vain to save Virion from his unfortunate end, and Donnel, who simply watched with wide and confused eyes.

A minute or so later the group came to the conclusion that they should search the area for the villagers who'd escaped the raid. With Sumia's help on her pegasus, they found out that several small groups were heading in the direction of a small barn on the outskirts of the village which had remained unharmed.

Arriving at the barn a short trek later Chrom, his sister, Frederick, Robin, and Donnel walked up to the entrance.

"Hello?" Chrom called out. He was met with silence. "We're not here to hurt you." He tried again. "The bandits in the village have been taken care of." Still there was silence.

"Ma?" Donnel called out hopefully. "It's me Donny, the Shepherds 'ere really did take out the bandits."

There was a shuffling from behind the barn doors, followed by hushed voices. A few seconds later the large wooden doors slowly opened, revealing an older-looking woman poking her head through the opening. Her eyes quickly landed on the familiar sight of her son. With a cry of relief the woman shoved the rest of the door open and enveloped Donnel in a relieved hug.

"Oh Donnel," she sobbed into the villager's shoulder, "I was so worried about you!"

"Aw, Ma. It's all fine now."

"A-and your father? Is he all right too?" All of a sudden she began to visibly worry about her husband.

"Pa's fine Ma." Donnel hurriedly assured, then gave a small grin. "He's just tired right now."

The mother gave a shuddering sigh of relief that both of her family members were now safe. "Thank Naga…"

"Your husband is a brave man." Chrom complemented, a warm smile on his face. He turned to where Stahl was bringing in the tired form of Donnel's father. "Donnel told me he chose to fight the bandits in order for everyone to escape."

Stahl lowered the father to the ground slowly, and with the aid of Donnel and his mother, the older villager was soon back on his own feet. Even with Lissa's healing Donnel could tell that his father was still drained from his earlier battle.

"Donnel?" The words were soft coming from the old villager, a testament to his exhaustion. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah Pa, everything's fine now."

"Good, good." Assured that his family was safe, the villager suddenly tipped forward, only saved from hitting the ground by a confused Donnel who caught him.

Panic initially swept through those gathered, until a loud snore quieted everyone. It appeared that his fatigue caught up with the old villager. Donnel laughed at his father, a goofy smile on his face. This caused the comatose villager to mutter something incoherent about how an angel protected him.

"I'm afraid that due to our schedule we can't help you rebuild your village." Chrom said to the gathered villagers once they all exited the barn. The Shepherds were due to head back to Ylisstol once they had the alliance with Ferox. And so they had to make sure to get there as quickly as possible.

One of the villagers waved away the apology. "Don't worry about it. Taking care of the bandits was more than enough for us." Other villagers murmured their agreements.

"I see. We'll be heading off then." With that, Chrom gave the Shepherds the order to be on their way to Ylisstol.

Only for Chrom to stop in his tracks a few steps later and turn around.

"Actually Donnel," he said, prompting the villager in question to turn his attention to the prince.

"You see, I've been meaning to ask you something…"

After spending some of his time in the frozen lands of Regna Ferox, Darren came to a sudden realization that he'd surprisingly never made before.

The deserts of Plegia were freakin' hot.

Before he knew it was supposed to be hot, that was common sense. But as he was running across the vast ocean of sand again, he could tell just how much of a difference there was from his last visit to now. Before he felt it was warm at best.

Now he was pretty sure he was cooking.

"Ahh, this is great."

Grima on the other hand, was clearly enjoying it. While he was sitting in the shade for a short break from running, the dragon flew lazy circles in the sunlight.

"I honestly can't understand how you can enjoy this." Darren said dryly.

"I don't understand how you can enjoy the cold." The dragon shot back. After nearly freezing himself in Regna Ferox on multiple occasions, he was finally able to get comfortable in the heat. "Besides, it probably has something to do with how I'm cold-blooded."

Darren snorted in annoyance and tugged at his hood. He could feel his clothes begin to stick to his back and it was a very uncomfortable feeling. For a few hours the two had been travelling the desert, with short breaks in between to regain their energy. With the lack of encounters from Risen or Plegian patrols, Darren should probably be grateful. But instead he found himself being bored.

"Where are we going again?"

"Grimleal churches."

"Right, how much longer 'till we get there?" If he continued staring at the desert for any longer, he was pretty sure he was going to go mad. Probably not evil-Grima style mad, but close. Maybe.

"At the rate we're going," Grima mused, expanding his senses to their location, "we'll arrive by nightfall." It was a useful thing that Grimleal areas emitted large amounts of the ancient energy the two used. Grima was able to pick up on them since they acted like homing beacons.

Darren stood up and stretched, might as well keep going. He set off at a jogging pace, grimacing at the sudden onslaught of heat that attacked him. "Are you sure that taking out Grimleal this early on is a smart idea?"

The fell dragon took off after his partner and landed on his head. Somehow the perch became one of his preferred spots to rest. "The less Grimleal there are, the less we'll have to deal with later on." He answered darkly. "And the less influence they have on towns and such the better." Suddenly a toothy grin spread across his face, and his voice switched to a more teasing tone. "Why, getting cold feet?"

The human snorted. "As if. I was just curious." Darren picked up the pace. Soon the two were once again speeding across the desert with ease. Bounding over sand hills and riding down the slopes to their destination.

The moon was just about to rise when the two finally made it to the Grimleal station. The outline of the church was barely visible in the darkness. Further beyond it lay a couple small villages only visible by distant torch light.

Squinting to see in front of him, Darren studied the building. It's silhouette looked fairly large. It either had two floors to it or just a fairly large ceiling. Which seemed to beg the question: how many enemies are there inside it?

"Can you sense anyone inside?" He asked.

Grima's red eyes glowed dimly in the darkness, narrowing slightly as he focused on the building. After a few seconds the dragon sighed disappointedly. "None that I can feel, the energy surrounding the place hides anything inside." The same thing that brought them there was acting as a double-edged sword.

Darren frowned momentarily, before he accepted that they were going in blind and sighed in acceptance. "So, are we going in stealth-mode or just charge in without a second thought?"

"Since when has charging in ever worked out?" A perplexed Grima asked.

"We've been doing that nearly every time we fought…"

The dragon snorted. "That was against Risen, there's a difference."

"I'm pretty sure that that's bull—"

A third voice startled Darren enough to abandon his rude retort, making him jump. From atop his head he also felt Grima stiffen in surprise.

"Uncle? Is that you?"

"Eh?" Both of them whirled to where they heard the voice. "Lucina?!" Darren loudly whispered after stopping himself from nearly yelling. Grima gaped at the future Exalt in silent shock.

Lucina approached the two from the direction of the village. Though it was difficult to see her completely, with what little moonlight there was, they could see that she had a small relieved smile on her face. One of things that clicked in Darren's mind was the fact that Lucina wasn't wearing her mask. She instead was wearing a cloak; most likely used for the purpose of travelling in the desert. "It's good to see you again uncle," she then nodded to the dragon on top of said uncle's head, "Grima."

"L-Lucina." Grima responded with shaky breath after somewhat getting over his shock.

"What're you doing here Lucina?! Shouldn't you be heading to Ylisse?!" Darren knew that the assassination attempt in Ylisstol wasn't too far from now. He had no idea what Lucina was doing here in _Plegia_ of all places.

Lucina tilted her head slightly to the side. "I'm here to help you clear the Grimleal base." She answered as if it was the most obvious thing. "I arrived here earlier in the day and stayed in the village. I was honestly worried that you wouldn't arrive."

"B-but what about the assassination attempt on Chrom and Emmeryn?" Darren spluttered. "And how did you even know we were going to be here?!"

Grima cut in before the bluenette could speak up, lightly smacking Darren with a wing. "She's from the future you goof, she has her reasons." He turned to Lucina. "You _do_ have a reason right?"

"Of course."

"See Darren? She knows what she's doi—"

"I'm here to help."

For the second time that night Darren and Grima froze.

"You're-here-to-what-now?" Darren eloquently asked.

Blue brows furrowed at the pair. "I don't see how this would be difficult for you to understand. Why else would I be here?"

"I-I just, wasn't expecting you here. And it's kinda dangerous." Darren admitted numbly, Grima nodded after to show he shared similar thoughts.

This was his first time attempting an attack on a Grimleal base, and anything could go wrong. Darren then looked to the ground with a frown marring his face. "I mean, I know you can handle yourself, you proved _that_ already in Ferox. It's just, I want you to stay safe." He looked back to Lucina, and then joked, "Plus Chrom'll kill me if he somehow finds out you got hurt while in my care."

Lucina let out a sigh. "Honestly uncle," she chided softly, "It's fine that you worry about me, appreciated even. But as you already know I can take care of myself."

"Yeah yeah, I get it."

"This isn't the first time I have joined you on a mission like this after all."

"Yeah yeah, you—what?"

"Yes Uncle, you heard me correctly."

Darren visibly struggled with words as he stared incredulously at Lucina. Oddly enough Grima was chuckling—albeit nervously. Finally after taking a breath to get his bearings, and shooting a quick glare to Grima, he faced the princess again.

"So let me get this straight," he began, "I, the other me, took you—a younger you in fact—to Grimleal bases before?"

"Correct."

"Oh geez." Feeling suddenly light headed, Darren sat down with a hand rubbing his temple.

"Looks like you were quite the model guardian back then huh?" Grima teased.

"Quiet you. You didn't exactly seem to have been the 'voice of reason' back then either."

Lucina let out a small smile as she watched the two in front of her continued their bickering. It almost made it seem like she had never left her old home. 'They never did change.' She mused, comparing the two in front of her to the two from her memories.

Grima and his partner ended their verbal sparring match soon after, ultimately deciding it was a draw. "We should get started now," he said, flying over to the top of Darren's head, "the Grimleal aren't going to take out themselves."

"Give it a few years and they just might." Darren muttered, referencing the events of the future. "So, what's our plan of attack?"

Grima blanched. "Of course you wouldn't have an idea."

"Of course I have plans!" Darren replied indignantly. "There's plan A: Attack, where we can just go in guns blazing."

Lucina seemed obviously leery of the idea. "I'm not sure about that uncle. We _are_ going in blind after all."

"Right. Well, I liked plan B better anyways…"

'Plan B' was essentially the approach one would expect to take in a situation like this. Where they would sneak around taking out anyone inside the building as quietly as possible. Being the safer of the two options, it was obvious which was picked.

'Plan A of course.'

"Stop that." Grima growled, retrieving a wing recently used to smack his partner upside the head.

"Alright alright, sheesh."

The group split up. Grima once again took off into the air and went on ahead. The fell-dragon was to work as both a scout, getting an estimation on the amount of Grimleal there were, and as an assassin, attacking any groups or individuals with higher threat levels.

Lucina was to enter the building (unseen of course, if she could help it) and quickly meet up with Grima and assist in any way she could. She was as confident in her stealth abilities as much as she was with her mastery of her sword. Something undoubtedly gained ever since she started going on Grimleal hunts.

Darren winced at the thought. Just what was future/past him thinking?! Taking a young Lucina on _Grimleal_ hunts of all things! Well, maybe he had a good reason. He'd never know now.

Shaking his head to prevent himself from spacing out, Darren focused on what he was going to do. He was going to the front entrance of the Grimleal church. Not the safest or smartest of choices, yes, but it was the easiest place of entry. With any luck it wasn't heavily guarded or watched. It shouldn't be. Why would a church in the middle of a few small desert villages be that cautious?

Anyway, he was glad that Grima was going in first to survey the place. Darren himself stood silently by the large metal doors that was the entrance, fidgeting from a mixture of nerves and excitement while he waited for the 'okay' from Grima. This was apparently the first of many hunts he was going to partake in, so he blamed his restlessness on that.

There was a muffled sound behind the doors followed by a thump. Darren immediately tensed. A quick hiss of metal sliding on metal later and his wrist blades were fully extended and ready to strike.

The partner of Grima wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed when it was Lucina who quietly pushed open the door.

"Uncle."

' _Entrance is secured._ ' Grima chimed in.

Darren gave a half lidded stare into space. 'A little late.' He groused. With a wordless yet thankful nod to Lucina he entered the church. The inside looked a lot like one would expect from a church back on Earth, with its large walkway leading up to an altar. Along the sides were the rows of benches where those attending would normally sit. Leaning against one of these benches was a slumped over body not too far from the doors. A dark mage, and an apparently low-classed one too, from the tattered Ruin tome (if his memory served him correctly) discarded near his body.

"This shouldn't be much of a problem." He reasoned.

Lucina blinked, as if suddenly remembering something. Then her eyes widened in fear. "You shouldn't have said that." She nearly hissed.

Frowning at the suddenly panicking Lucina, Darren grew confused. "Why not?"

"Things _never_ work out as planned when you say tha—"

"We've got company." Whatever the princess was going to say was cut off by Grima as he flew in from a hallway entrance at the end of the corridor. "A group of seven are on their way here."

While Lucina sighed in a way that gave the impression of it being a repeated action, Darren felt his eyes twitching slightly. "That's… unlucky."

Unaware of what had just happened between the two, Grima continued. "It'll be fine. You two can go on ahead while I take care of them." The miniature dragon then nudged his head in the direction of a second hallway opposite to the one he'd come from.

"Are you sure you can?" Was Darren's dubious reply. Already he can hear Lucina's footsteps making their way to the hallway Grima indicated. _She_ clearly trusted him, but Darren was only making sure.

The dragon waved off the concern. "Of course I can. Now get out of here before they come."

Without another word Darren turned and sped off in the same direction Lucina went.

When the figures of the two humans were no longer in his sight, Grima glanced to the other door where the approaching Grimleal could be heard getting closer, then to the space surrounding him. Eyeing the various torches placed on the walls, Grima hummed in thought.

A dark pulse then emanated from the dragon's body, and the room was plunged into darkness.

* * *

The group of seven stood hesitantly at the doorway into the main room of the church. Something wasn't right.

Earlier that night one of their own had left to do their routinely patrol.

He never returned.

Normally this wasn't a cause for concern. The lad probably just went to bed, it was late after all.

But then another thought they heard voices coming from the main hall. Unrecognizable ones at that.

With each minute that passed without the return of their member their worry grew.

They had all come to the decision to go to investigate as a group. Just in case there was someone there.

And now as they stared into the normally lit —even if it was dim— room of the church, which was now pitch black with the exception of scarce moonlight.

They couldn't help but feel that they were right.

"Quick," one of the Grimleal at the front whispered to the ones behind him, "grab the torches on the walls. I can barely see a thing in there."

A moment of awkward struggling to detach a few of the torches later and the group walked into the large room. The light from their torches casted long and eerie shadows. Some of them even swore they saw the shadows themselves moving.

"It doesn't look like there's anythin' here." Said one of the older Grimleal stationed at the church. All of them were squinting their eyes in an attempt to see beyond the minuscule light they had.

"There has to be." Said another as he looked down a row of seats. " _Something_ blew out the lights here, and I'm sure it wasn't the wind."

"You're right."

Upon hearing the disembodied voice that surrounded the group they all stiffened. Within moments their eyes were darting everywhere across the hall to locate the source of the voice. Several Grimleal bumped into each other in their frantic search.

"Do you have a moment to spare to talk about your lord and saviour: Grima?" The voice asked pleasantly.

Perhaps it was the sudden feeling of dread that was growing within each of the Grimleal, making them paranoid.

But they all thought for a moment that the darkness surrounding them was getting closer.

"Show yourself!" One of the Grimleal shouted, trying and failing to keep the panic out of their voice.

A pulse of darkness surged through the air in response to the demand. Had any of the Grimleal been in a controlled state of mind they would have recognized the energy signature to be the same one associated with their dark tomes. In the blink of an eye the only light sources the group had vanished, leaving them with the dim moonlight that could barely allow them to see their own hands.

None of the Grimleal dared to make a sound. Several of them had managed to take out their tomes, even if only for their own reassurance.

They all whirled to where a gasp was heard.

They were met by a pair of glowing red eyes.

Then slowly two more pairs revealed themselves, above and below the original.

"Because he's not very pleased with you."

The voice ceased being disembodied, and instead was focused on the beast hidden in the darkness.

The Grimleal only had a brief second of respite before the screaming started.

* * *

Darren looked back to the direction he'd left Grima. With a small shove he pushed the robed body of a Grimleal to the floor and withdrew his wrist blades. Around him several bodies were scattered on the floor.

It appeared that others also somehow figured out that there were intruders in the church. And if there were any who didn't already know this fact, the terrified screaming coming from the main hall sure would have.

Across from him Lucina sheathed Falchion calmly. While it was surely a surprise when a bunch of Grimleal burst into the room they were in at the time, the two of the recovered quick enough to fight back. In the enclosed space they were all in the spells the Grimleal launched were as dangerous to themselves as it was to them. Luckily the short space between the two groups made it so the two of them could close the distance in mere seconds.

It was also appreciated that apparently none of the church's occupants were physical fighters. A few of them pulled out knives but they clearly didn't know how to use the weapons.

"I'll admit," Lucina started, surveying the dead bodies strewn about, "that wasn't nearly as bad as it usually is."

"You're saying it gets worse with age?" Darren deadpanned.

"Yes?"

"Perfect."

Darren sulkily trudged past the bodies to the door the Grimleal came from. With a jerk the door flew open. He didn't move.

"Uncle?"

He didn't respond.

"Uncle?" Lucina's calls becoming a little more worried. She ran over to where her uncle was standing still, a hand held the handle for Falchion in case it was needed. Looking over his shoulder she saw something she wasn't expecting.

A risen stared back at them. If anything it looked like it was surprised to see them. There was no armor on the undead, in fact it had no visible weapons whatsoever.

With a moan it lurched to its technical cousin, hands reached out and making a grasping motion while snapping its teeth.

Lucina had barely enough time to pull Darren out of the way when she finally broke out of her confused state.

"Watch out Uncle!"

A quick cleave later the risen toppled to the floor, then dissipate after a few seconds.

Darren watched all of this with rapidly growing confusion. "W-why was there a risen here?" The question was left out in the air since neither of them apparently had an answer. Shakily the male teen got to his feet from where he had been pushed to the ground. With cautious steps he walked to the door again and walked into the next room.

On an otherwise empty table lay a closed book and a paper with writing beside it. Curiosity forced his nerves back into line. He picked up the paper, but unsurprisingly he wasn't able to read the native language of this world. He frowned at the reminder of his illiteracy in this world, and planned to eventually fix that problem. In the meantime…

"Um, Lucina, could you—"

"On it Uncle." The paper was handed over to the only person in the group of three that could read what was on. As Lucina read the paper Darren reached for the closed book still on the table. It had a purple cover, signifying that it was of te dark magic tree. The symbol on the front didn't look like any he could remember. Turning the tome in his hand he could also tell that the material it was made of seemed relatively new, unlike the tomes the Grimleal were using.

"Ah." The blue haired princess was staring at the book as if she finally recognized what it was.

"What is it Lucina?"

"I wasn't able to recognize it at first, it being a few years since I last saw one. But I do believe that what you're holding is one of the first Risen-summoning tomes." Suddenly the book seemed a lot heavier in Darren's hand. "They were used often by the Grimleal, before the corrupted version of Grima was revived and wiped out most of Plegia." Lucina frowned in thought. "Though I wonder why one was sent to this particular church."

At a loss for words Darren summarized what he was told in a quick and simple:

"Oh."

* * *

Tearing into another dark mage who dared oppose him Grima could feel the more basic instincts of his draconic lineage taking control. He felt an odd desire to simply indulge himself in the chaos he made, but instead reigned them in and kept himself in check. It wouldn't do to let such things happen. Even if it wasn't on the same level, Grima didn't want to be like his crazed counterpart. And he _did_ want to make allies in this world after all.

Darren was nice, and he cared for the young lad, but the dragon also knew that once they eventually meet up with the Shepherds he would start trying to make new friends. And so would he.

He fired an energy blast at another Grimleal, the ball of darkness colliding with and overpowering a Ruin spell. The user was killed, though in a less gruesome manner now that he was controlling himself more strictly.

The Grimleal had somehow managed to relight one of the torches shortly after Grima began his attack, revealing his form for them to bear. They had seemed shocked at first, but that wore off after they remembered that they were being attacked. Some of them were begging for forgiveness for whatever they had to displease their god, while others refused to accept him as the being they worshipped.

He ignored all of this now, and just focused on eliminating them. The dragon was making use of his ability to change size and the limited vision the Grimleal had. He would disappear back into the shadows, resume a smaller form, and attack from a different angle than from what he was using before. The Grimleal were unable to land a single hit on him like this.

Not that there would be any actual danger if he was hit by one, but he still wanted to project an image of complete superiority. And that nothing the Grimleal could do would harm him.

Within little time there were eleven bodies on the church floor. Most had been part of the original group, while the few that also joined were possibly the loners.

'I'm finished over here Darren, anything on your side?'

The response from his partner was rather nervous sounding.

' _Erm, does finding a Risen summoning tome count?_ '

Grima blinked. Once, then a second time. 'Probably, yes. Those actually exist?'

' _According to Lucina, and the book in front of me, yeah, they do_.'

While having suspicions that there was a way to summon and control the reanimated warriors, Grima hadn't been exactly sure what method would have been used. The idea of a tome being capable of summoning Risen didn't sit well with him.

'Were we by ourselves I'd say we go and hunt down more Grimleal.' He said after a moment of thinking. 'The thought of a large amount of those tomes being used by the Grimleal honestly worries me. But since we have Lucina with us we should start heading back to Ylisse. Are you sure no one is left alive?'

' _Absolutely. There were a few more that showed up, but they weren't a problem. We'll meet you outside_.'

Their task of the first 'hunt' completed, the three soon met outside.

"So," began Darren as he stared at the dimly lit ground while frowning in thought. "How're we going to get to Ylisse? Grima and I can get there easily." His eyes briefly flitted over to Lucina then back to the ground. "It's probably been a long day for you Lucina, from having to walk here and wait for us, and I can only guess how tired you are. Walking there, even at a fast pace would take a—"

"It won't be a problem Darren. I can carry her on my back easily in a bigger form. That way she can get any rest she needs." Grima looked to the princess in question. "That is, if you accept."

Lucina gave a tired yet thankful smile. With a nod she answered: "Yes, I will, thank you Grima."

In a flash of darkness the dragon grew in size. Now large enough to accommodate for the weight of a human, Grima flew close to the ground.

"Best to set off right now."

In wordless agreement Lucina hopped on with the grace of memory, her arms wrapped around Grima's body. Within a few quick readjustments she was as comfortable as one could get while on tough scales.

Darren, who had dutifully looked away to avoid feelings he didn't want to feel toward someone who called him uncle, started their journey back with a run. Grima followed with gentle push of his wings. Very soon they were speeding across the dark desert. Cool winds greeted them instead of the heat of day.

Lucina found herself relaxing with the familiar experience of riding on Grima's back. With a small yawn she nestled her head in a groove between scales that she knew from memory. A few minutes of peaceful travelling later she was fast asleep.

* * *

 _They were so close. All of them had gathered the necessary amount of gemstones needed for Naga to send them back in time. It was just the simple matter of walking through the portal that would allow them to do so._

 _Then an army of Risen was deposited right in between them and the portal._

 _Even though it was so sudden and unexpected, her and the others reacted as quickly as possible. They set up a perimeter and fought, slowly moving through the ranks of the undead to get to their destination. But they were being overwhelmed. Their charge slowed to a stop and their perimeter shrunk under the pressure of the oncoming Risen._

 _A taunting laughter echoed through the air, sending shivers through the children of the Shepherds even in the midst of battle._

 _"And so here ends the human race."_

 _Each individual that wasn't a Risen knew exactly who that voice belonged to._

 _The very reason why they had to go back in time, the very reason their parents were dead, and the very reason humanity was on its last legs. Grima. Or at least the twisted image of Grima. The monster descending from the clouds wasn't the one who helped raise them when their own parents died._

 _"Tiny ones, know that your struggle is futile."_

 _None of them in any position to respond safely, they continued fighting._

 _The dragon laughed again at their efforts, enjoying their struggle with sadistic pleasure. "Know that it is time for all of you…"_

 _Its jaw opened wide, exposing an endless tunnel filled with large sharp teeth. Even though they couldn't see it, the children knew what just about to happen. They fought and fought but there was just no end to the Risen._

 _"…to DIE!"_

 _Two things happened at this time._

 _One: the world went dark for all of them. And two: an explosion sounded, followed by a blindingly bright light._

 _When their eyes adjusted they noticed how all the Risen stopped moving, and how a second dragon almost as large as the first was positioned in front of the latter._

 _"Pick on someone your own size." The newcomer growled, a second large blast of dark energy already forming in its mouth. Another explosion, followed by the roar of the enraged dragon who received it._

 _Suddenly the Risen closest to them began moving again. But this time they made no attempt to attack the second generation of Shepherds. Instead they parted and began fighting other Risen, steadily creating a pathway for them to go through. Looking closely their eyes would periodically flash blue._

 _"You all are going to have to get moving, Grima won't be able hold him off for long."_

 _A few Risen parted, revealing one of the last people they would think of as a parent._

 _Darren smiled warmly at the assembled soon-to-be time travelers. "I'll make sure you get there safely. Now go! We don't have much time."_

 _Not being ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, or disobey orders, they took off. Some through the air on their mounts or wings, while the rest ran on the ground. On their way Risen fought against Risen, and it was clear that the allied ones were losing ground. True to his word, Darren made sure nothing was in their way. Everywhere throughout the battlefield a shadow blew through enemy lines. A small explosion here, one over there, a whole group of Risen blocking their way were cut down in a flash._

 _Within little time they were all in front of the portal. Allied Risen surrounded them, providing as a last barrier._

 _Darren stood in front of them, not in slightest tired-looking despite how much he had moved, but he had a resigned look on his face. The smile he wore now was obviously fake._

 _"Hey, you guys should be heading off now. I won't be coming along."_

 _This was met with various cries of disbelief and questions of "why not"._

 _Darren shook his head and jerked his thumb in the direction of where the two dragons were locked in combat. "Someone's gotta take care of Grima." He joked. The fake smile fell off. "And this is something you guys have to do on your own. I believe you guys will succeed where I failed."_

 _A loud crash was followed by the earth shaking._

 _"We're running out of time. Wished I could send you all off with an appropriate goodbye, guess this is all I can give._

 _Know that I care deeply about all of you, and Grima does too. Take care."_

 _With solemn nods and two salutes from the more usually enthusiastic Shepherds, they all departed through the portal._

 _"Lucina, wait."_

 _She stopped, and turned to face her uncle._

 _"Go to Regna Ferox, by the time you get there I should be Flavia's representing champion, but you already know my story. Help my younger self if you want. It'll benefit him as much as it will you."_

 _She nodded._

 _"I will, Uncle."_

 _Darren smiled, and reached over to pat her head. "Thank you Lucina. Goodbye."_

 _She once again nodded and ran to the open portal._

 _"Goodbye, Darren."_


End file.
